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

A CRITICISM OP THE OELL-THEOKY. . 141
exist between some cells composing adult tissues, there is an
antecedent probability that similar connections exist between
all cells composing all tissues; and this probability is heightened
by observations made on the development of Peripatus, by the
fact that the so-called mesenchyme cells in Avian and Selachian
embryos are continuous, and not isolated, as was once supposed,
and by a study of the developing nerves of Elasmobranchs.
And that it follows from this that the morphological concept
of a cell, so far from being of primary, is altogether of Secondary
importance, and that progress in the knowledge of
structure is impossible so long as men persistently regard
cells as the fundamental structural units on which the phenomena
manifested by organised beings depend. The true
method of enquiry must be a study of the growth, extension,
vacuolation and specialisation of the living substance—protoplasm.
It is in this sense that I propose to deal with Mr. Sedgwick's
views, and he will pardon me if I have misinterpreted them.
At any rate, I have done my best to understand them.
I would wish to show, in the first place, that there is very
slender ground for the accusations which Mr. Sedgwick levels,
in an unsparing manner, against his zoological contemporaries.
He goes so far as to say that their eyes are blinded by theory
to the most patent facts, and that " they are constrained by
this theory,"—the cell theory,—" with which their minds are
saturated, not only to see things which do not exist, but
actually to figure them." This is abuse and not argument;
if Mr. Sedgwick were to remember the qualifying sentence in
his writings of 1886, "if they are of general application," he
would recognise that there is little occasion for accusing
Zoologists of perversely ignoring the views which he then
Set forth.
For, in fact, the phenomena to which he draws our attention
have received their due meed of recognition from the time
that the cellular structure of tissues was first studied,
More recent researches have enlarged our knowledge of protoplasmic
continuity, but it is still a phenomenon far from being