THE FORMATION OF PROTEIDS IN PLANT-CELLS. 
67 
but is the product of the transformation 1 ) of the directly formed 
active unstable albumen is plainly logical and needs no further 
explanation to any one acquainted with the progress of chem¬ 
istry; it is no “doctrinary assumption,” as a botanist in Ger¬ 
many has supposed it to be. 
The development and perfection of the sciences causes a 
growing division of labor but the increased study of details often 
impedes an insight into the connection of the phenomena of relat¬ 
ed branches of science. A catalogue of isolated facts, however, 
accumulated with infinite pains by scientific workers, will have a 
still fuller significance by the establishment of a unifying con¬ 
ception. The theory here developed combines and compares 
observations on the lowest as well as the highest forms of vegeta¬ 
tion, gives a very plausible account of the mode of protein forma¬ 
tion, leads at the same time to a very natural explanation of the 
chemical difference between living and dead protoplasm, and 
points to conclusions as to the nature of poisonous actions, which 
have been verified by experiments. 1 2) 
Still, new theories are making their way very slowly. The 
history of opinion, says R. Beeton, has three stages. The first 
stage is that in which men say it is not true ; the second is that 
in which they say, there may be something in it, and the third 
stage is that in which they say they have been of that opinion 
all along ! The theory of the active albumen has now reached 
the second stage. 
1) Compare pag. ßi.Chapt. IV. 
2) Compare Chapt. Ill of this essay. 
