4 LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
being an incommunicable property could not be dependent 
on any central influence. A different explanation of the 
interdependence of the parts and the whole of living beings 
is therefore given by Schwann, one of the illustrious founders 
of the cell theory. Schwann states that ‘‘The whole 
organism subsists only by means of the reciprocal action 
of the single elementary parts,” the expression reciprocal 
action being taken in its widest sense, and as including the 
preparation by one elementary part of material which 
another requires for its own nutrition. Thus the majority 
of the individual cells may be unable to subsist when 
separated from the whole organism, because it is only 
while together they can obtain the nutriment and other 
conditions requisite for continuous life. Therefore ‘the 
cause of nutrition and growth resides, not in the organism 
as a whole, but in the separate elementary parts—the 
cells. The failure of growth in the case of any particular. 
cell when separated from an organised body, is as slight 
an objection to this theory, as it is an objection against the 
independent vitality of a bee that it cannot continue long 
in existence after being separated from its swarm. ‘The 
manifestation of the power which resides in the cell 
depends upon conditions to which it is subject cnly 
when in connection with the whole (organism).’* On 
the general question of the teleological or the physical 
view of life, I cannot do better than also follow Schwann, 
who reduces the various opinions with respect to the 
fundamental powers of organised beings to two, viz., the 
teleological and the physical. In the former every organ 
is supposed to ‘‘originate with an internal power which 
models it into comformity with a predominant idea, 
arranging the molecules in’ the relation necessary for 
accomplishing certain purposes held forth by this idea. 
* Syd. Soc. Translation, p. 192. 
