of Edinhurgh, Session 1883 - 84 . 
267 
Societies as the Zoological or the Linnean, such new and important 
faunistic literature as that contained in the magnificent volumes of 
the “ Challenger ” Expedition, or even the greatest systematic works, 
find their highest place not as superseding, hut as supplementing 
the fundamental classic of Linnaeus. Similarly all works of detailed 
anatomical research united with exact comparison and clear gene- 
ralisation, are in botany simply to be regarded as supplementary 
to the little work in which Antoine de Jussieu founded the dvatural 
System, or in zoology to the Regne Animal of Cuvier, himself also 
an intellectual heir of Yesalius; Embry ological literature in like 
manner finds its place in the appendix and commentary to the 
works of Eobert Brown or Von Baer respectively; at the head of 
all investigations of serial homologies stands Goethe’s memorable 
essay On the Metamorgihoses of Plants; while all evolutionary 
literature may be arranged round the works of Lamarck and Darwin. 
The morphological investigator, unless claiming to initiate some 
new line of thought, has thus to take his place simply as an 
assistant to one or more of a few immortal masters. 
But the cell theory? This is apt to be excluded from general 
morphology altogether, and to have a separate subordinate province 
— of histology — erected for it, a vicious tendency, which although 
by no means fully adopted, still somewhat injures the continuity of 
treatment in the writer’s recent essay on Morphology.* To ascer- 
tain its position, we must first briefly glance at its history. 
Here the fundamental classic is undoubtedly the Anatomie GhiP 
rale of Bichat, though in this the name of cell does not even occur, 
the “ tissue ” being assumed as fundamental. The analysis of the 
organism into definite structural components is, however, the main 
idea ; after this the history of histology is little more than of accumu- 
lating observations with improving optical and technical appliances, 
until we come to Schleiden, who boldly referred all vegetable tissues 
to the cellular type, and the plant embryo to a single nucleated 
cell; while Schwann, by immediately extending the generalisation 
to the animal world, fully constituted the ceil theory. This idea 
then is fundamental in morphology; for the innumerable species 
and genera of plants and animals made known under the leadership 
* Ency. Brit., xvi. p. 837 ; amended in German translation, JenuiscM 
Zeitschr., 1884. 
