Page:Microscopicial researchers - Theodor Schwann - English Translation - 1947.pdf/220

194 THEORY OF THE CELLS. cells commence their formation so near to one another that the boundaries of the layers forming around each of them meet at any spot, a common layer may be formed enclosing the two incipient cells. So at least the origin of nuclei, with two or more nucleoli, seemed explicable, by a coalescence of the first layers (corresponding to the nucleus), and the union of many primary cells into one secondary cell by a similar coalescence of the second layers (which correspond to the cell). But the further development of these common layers proceeds as though they were only an ordinary single layer. Lastly, there were some varieties in the progressive development of the cells, which were referable to an unequal deposition of the new molecules between those already present in the separate layers. In this way modifications of form and division of the cells were explained. And among the number of the plastic phenomena in the cells we may mention, lastly, the formation of secondary deposits ; for instances occur in which one or more new layers, each on the inner surface of the previous one, are deposited on the inner surface of a simple or of a secondary cell.

These are the most important phenomena observed in the formation and development of cells. The unknown cause, presumed to be capable of explaining these processes in the cells, may be called the plastic power of the cells. We will, in the next place, proceed to determine how far a more accurate definition of this power may be deduced from these phenomena.

In the first place, there is a power of attraction exerted in the very commencement of the cell, in the nucleolus, which occasions the addition of new molecules to those already present. We may imagine the nucleolus itself to be first formed by a sort of crystallization from out of a concentrated fluid. For if a fluid be so concentrated that the molecules of the substance in solution exert a more powerful mutual attraction than is exerted between them and the molecules of the fluid in which they are dissolved, a part of the solid substance must be precipitated. One can readily understand that the fluid must be more concentrated when new cells are being formed in it than when those already present have merely to grow. For if the cell is already partly formed, it exerts an attractive force upon the substance still in solution, There is then a cause for the deposition of this substance, which does not co-operate