266 THE CELL-THEORY 



anatomical and physiological unity, capable of performing one function 

 only — the life of the organism being the life of the separate cells of 

 which it is composed ? and is not a cell with different organs and 

 functions something totally different from what we mean by a cell 

 among the higher animals ? We must say that the admission of the 

 existence of unicellular organisms appears to us to be virtually giving 

 up the cell-theory for these organisms. If it be once admitted that a 

 particle of vitalizable matter may assume a definite and complex form, 

 may take on different functions in its different parts, and may exhibit 

 all the phenomena of life, without assuming the cellular structure, we 

 think that it necessarily follows that the cells are not the centres of 

 the manifestation of the vital forces ; or that, if they be so, the nature 

 of these forces is different in the lower organisms from what it is in 

 the higher — a proposition which probably few would feel disposed to 

 maintain. 



So much for the critical, and therefore more or less ungrateful, 

 portion of our task. We have seen how the great idea, fully possessed 

 by Fallopius, that life is not the effect of organization, nor necessarily 

 dependent upon it, but, on the other hand, that organization is only 

 one of the phenomena presented by living matter — carried to absurdity 

 by Stahl and Van Helmont — has, on the other hand, been too much 

 neglected by the later writers who have attempted to reduce life to the 

 mere attractions and repulsions of organic centres, or to consider 

 physiology simply as a complex branch of mere physics. We have 

 seen how this latter notion has been fostered by the misconceptions of 

 a great botanist, only too faithfully followed in the animal world by 

 the illustrious author of the cell-theory ; and we have endeavoured to 

 show how the solitary genius of Wolff had kept in the old track, and 

 that the choice of modern histologists lies between him and Schleiden 

 and Schwann. It will be sufficiently obvious that our own election has 

 long been made in this matter, and we beg to submit the following 

 sketch of a general theory of the structure of plants and animals — 

 conceived in the spirit, and not unfrequently borrowing the phraseology^ 

 of Wolff and Von Baer. 



Vitality, the faculty, that is, of exhibiting definite cycles of change 

 in form and composition, is a property inherent in certain kinds of 

 matter. 



There is a condition of all kinds of living matter in which it is an 

 amorphous germ — that is, in which its external form depends merely 

 on ordinary physical laws, and in which it possesses no internal 

 structure. 



Now, according to the nature of certain previous conditions — the 



