Page:Microscopicial researchers - Theodor Schwann - English Translation - 1947.pdf/189

Rh The formative process of the cells of plants was clearly explained by the researches of Schleiden, and appeared to be the same in all vegetable cells. So that when plants were regarded as something special, as quite distinct from the animal kingdom, one universal principle of development was observed in all the elementary particles of the vegetable organism, and physiological deductions might be drawn from it with regard to the independent vitality of the individual cells of plants, &c. But when the elementary particles of animals and plants were considered from a common point, the vegetable cells seemed to be merely a separate species, co-ordinate with the different species of animal cells, just as the entire class of cells was cu-ordinate with the fibres, &c., and the uniform principle of development in vegetable cells might be explained by the slight physiological difference of their elementary particles.

The object, then, of the present investigation was to show, that the mode in which the molecules composing the elementary particles of organisms are combined does not vary according to the physiological signification of those particles, but that they are everywhere arranged according to the same laws; so that whether a muscular fibre, a nerve-tube, an ovum, or a blood-corpuscle is to be formed, a corpuscle of a certain form, subject only to some modifications, a cell-nucleus, is universally generated in the first instance; around this corpuscle a cell is developed, and it is the changes which one or more of these cells undergo that determine the subsequent forms of the elementary particles; in short, that there is one common principle of development for all the elementary particles of organisms.

In order to establish this point it was necessary to trace the progress of development in two given elementary parts, physiologically dissimilar, and to compare them with one another. If these not only completely agreed in growth, but in their mode of generation also, the principle was established that elementary parts, quite distinct in a physiological sense, may be developed according to the same laws. This was the theme of the first section of this work. The course of development of the cells of cartilage and of the