Page:Defensive Ferments of the Animal Organism (3rd edition).djvu/26



question has frequently been raised, whether unicellular organisms exhibit simpler processes, in their general organization and metabolism, than do organisms composed of numerous cells. A priori, it is conceivable that organisms of a morphologically simpler construction are composed of simpler combinations, and that their metabolic processes follow a simpler path, than is the case in those forms of life in which the body is built up by the co-operation of different cells. But all our experience, hitherto, has proved, that even those cells which are constructed on a simple plan morphologically do, when studied from a purely chemical point of view, show exceedingly complicated relations. Indeed, the study of the processes of metabolism in unicellular forms of life is a study all the more difficult, in comparison with that of more complicated organisms, in that, in the former, it is so difficult to separate the actually I