PEOOFS OF OKGANISING MIND 317 



dead and the living cell, and admits that our knowledge of the 

 latter is extremely imperfect. He enumerates many differ- 

 ences between them, and declares that '' substances exist in liv- 

 ing which are not to be found in dead cell-substance." He 

 also recognises the constant internal motions of the living cell, 

 the incessant waste and repair, while si ill preserving the highly 

 complex cell in its integrity for indefinite periods; its resist- 

 ance during life to destructive agencies, to which it is exposed 

 the moment life ceases ; but still there is no '" vital force " — 

 to postulate that would be unscientific. 



Yet in this highly elaborate volume of 600 closely printed 

 pages, dealing with every aspect of cell-structure and physiol- 

 ogy in all kinds of organisms, he gives no clue whatever to the 

 existence of any directive and organising powers such as are 

 absolutely essential to preserve even the unicellular organism 

 alive, and which become more and more necessary as we pass 

 to the higher animals and plants, with their vast complexity 

 of organs, reproduced in every successive generation from 

 single cells, which go through their almost infinitely elaborate 

 processes of cell-division and recomposition, till the whole vast 

 complex of the organic machinery ■ — the whole body, limbs, 

 sense, and reproductive organs — are built up in all their per- 

 fection of structure and co-ordination of parts, such as char- 

 acterises every living thing ! 



Let us now recur to the subject that has led to this digres- 

 sion — the feathers of a bird. We have seen that a full-gi'own 

 wing-feather may consist of more than a million distinct parts 

 — the barbules, which give the feather its essential character, 

 whether as an organ of flight or a mere covering and heat-pre- 

 server of the body. But these barbules are themselves highly 

 specialised bodies with definite forms and surface-texture, 

 attaching each one to its next lateral barbule, and, by a kind 

 of loose hook-and-eye formation, to those of the succeeding 

 barb. Each of these barbules must therefore be built up of 

 many thousands of cells (probably many millions), differing 

 considerably in form and powers of cohesion, in order to pro- 



