A Criticism of the Cell-Theory; being an Answer to Mr. Sedgwick's ...

A CRITICISM OF THE CELL-THEORY. 169
As a physiological concept it is hardly less useful, though
reflection may induce us to abandon the " cell-republic"
theory, as, indeed, it has been tacitly abandoned by many.
I take it that the scheme of von Sachs very nearly expresses,
in general terms, the physiological importance of the cell.
An organism is a protoplasmic body, coherent in itself, which
grows, and as it grows it is divided by cleavage into innumerable
corpuscles, and it appears that the more vigorously
this formatian of corpuscles proceeds with the nutrition of the
organism, the higher also is the development attained by the
total organisation. Nor does this statement stand in any contradiction
to the original theory of Schwann, from whom I
may quote two more passages : "The elementary parts of all
tissues are formed of cells, in an analogous though very
diversified manner, so that it may be asserted that there is
one universal principle of development for the elementary
parts of organisms, however different, and that this principle
is the formation of cells." And again, he says of the relations
of cells to one another, " Each cell is within certain limits an
individual, an independent whole. The vital phenomena of
one are repeated, entirely or in part, in all the rest. These
individuals, however, are not ranged side by side as a mere
aggregate, but so. operate together in a manner unknown to
us, as to produce a harmonious whole." It should be remembered
that Schwann regarded cells as so many separate vesicles,
and when allowance is made for this error, the second
part of the last passage must be allowed to have great significance.
The subordination of the parts to the harmonious
whole, leading to the loss of individuality of the parts, in
animal tissues, was insisted on by Hackel in his ' Generelle
Morphologic' The first of the two sentences which I have
quoted from Schwann is even more true to-day than when it
was written, for we have got rid of the cell-forming matrix,
the cytoblastema ; and I would wish to insist on this passage
as expressing in the clearest possible language the cell-theory
as we understand it to-day.
From this standpoint we can see, obscurely it may be, why