e is to a great extent deter-mined. This general conclusion is drawn from the innumerable phenomena we perceive in the organic world—phenomena which differ, whether, on the one hand, the materials are the same and the forms differ, or, on the other, the materials differ, while the forms are the same.
If, therefore, the vegetable kingdom consisted of one common cellular substance, this being different, however, only as to the form, either in various tribes or genera, or species, or parts, or organs of plants ; the effects of the same chemical body, of the same cellular substance, must, of necessity, be different for each different form. This has, in fact, been found to be true. These little individuals, these little cells, become other individuals when different in form, or when connected together in a different manner, though they consist almost of the same substances. The very smallest difference in the nature of the substances they consist of, or with which they are in contact, can infinitely influence that dif ference of form, and thus the material products of different forms are as innumerable, and as frequently modified, as the different forms produced through their difference in substance are innumerable, and frequently modified. Finally, if the form and substance are constant, the products of the cells must also be constant ; if either the form or the substance of the cells differs, these products must be different.
" It is only right, therefore, that they who study the doctrine of life, should set the highest value upon the knowledge of forms, and should not rest satisfied with merely knowing the percentage of the component parts, or with merely enumerating a series of chemical sub stances, which appear on the analysis of an organic body, even if it were possible to get only natural products by an artificial analysis."
There is more in it than Mulder sees; but his observations, combined with what has previously been set forth, may enable the reader to appreciate the final static Law :
LAW III. Merorganic substances become teleorganic by the assumption of a Spherical Form.
The blastema, or nutrient fluid, contains the higher multiples and the proximate principles of indefinite composition, but it is merorganic, not teleorganic; it is organizable, it is not vital ; and the one decisive condition—the only one known—which can transform this blastema into a vital substance is simply the assumption of a Spherical Form.
In saying that the passage from the inorganic to the organic is effected by the assumption of the spherical form (which may stand as a general statement of my theory, qualified by what has been said respecting multiples and synthesis), I am really saying no more than what the facts reveal. Its novelty may startle, but what is it more than the mineralogist's explanation of crystallization ? Just as the solution becomes a crystal only when its molecules arrange themselves in a determinate form, so does the blastema become vital only when its molecules arrange themselves in a determinate form.
Not only is this assumption of a Spherical Form the last step in the process, but by the loss of that Form the cell loses its peculiar vital characteristic—its reproductive power. I cannot here enter upon the mass of evidence ready to prove this position, but must con-tent myself with the assertion, confident that physiology will show organic substance becomes vital as soon as it assumes the cell form, and ceases to be vital (reproductive), though not ceasing to be organized, with its loss of that form. " It seems established," says Dr. Carpenter, " as the aggregate result of the labours of many observers, that in animals as in plants all the parts in which active vital changes are taking place essentially consist of cells, which may be regarded as the real instruments of these operations, the tissues with which they are blended having no other purpose than to supply the physical conditions requisite for them."* If M. Brame's discovery should prove true, this essential activity of the cell will be further illustrated 