MYSTERY OF THE CELJ. 371 



But the very first step of this process of ^^rowtli — the di- 

 vision of the germ-cells, as descrihed by Weisniann himself 

 and illustrated by his diagrams — is, as he himself almost ad- 

 mits, equally inexplicable. He speaks of a *' complex, but 

 wonderfully exact, apparatus for the division of the nucleus," 

 of the purpose of that division being qualitative as well as 

 quantitative, and of its evident adnptailon to the building up 

 of the future body, with all its marvellous complexities, co- 

 ordinations, and powers. So that the farther we go in this 

 bewildering labyrinth, as expounded in his wnrlcs, in those of 

 Professor Thomson, of Max ^^erworu, or in such general works 

 as Parker and Haswell's Text-Book of Zoology, the more hope- 

 lessly inadequate do we find the claims of Ilaeckel, Verworu, 

 and their school to having made any approach whatever to a 

 solution of " the riddle of the universe,'' so far as regards its 

 crowning problem, the origin and development of life. 



The Plant Cell 



So far I have taken the facts as to cell-division from the 

 works of zoologists only ; but almost exactly the same phe- 

 nomena have been found to occur in plants, though they seem 

 to have been rather more difficult to detect and unravel. In 

 Professor A. Kerner's Katural History of Plants, already 

 quoted, he gives the following short description of cell-di- 

 vision : 



Wlien a protoplast living in a cell-cavity is about to divide into 

 two, the process resulting in division is as follows : — The nucleus 

 places itself in the middle of its cell, and at first characteristic lines 

 and streaks appear in its substance, making it look like a ball made 

 up of little threads and rods pressed together. Tliese threads 

 gradually arrange themselves in positions corresponding to the 

 meridian lines upon a globe: but at the place where on a globe 

 the equator would lie, there then occurs suddenly a cleavage of tlie 

 nucleus — a partition wall of cellulose is interposed in the gap. and 

 from a single cell we have now produced a pnir of cells ■' (vol. i. 

 p. 48). 



