 consequence of which is a crystal ; and, what is still more remarkable, in this cellular embryo not only has the microscopic cell an enveloping membrane, enclosing within it a soft semitransparent matter containing vapour, which when condensed forms a crystal (thus furnishing both " cell membrane" and "cell contents"), but these cells assume an arrangement very analogous to that of the organic tissues ! Granting, however, all that M. Brame claims, his discovery reveals nothing of the passage from the inorganic to the organic—it only enlightens us on the formation of crystals. Instead of showing the crystal as an organic beginning, it shows the crystal as a consequence and outgrowth of an organic beginning. We might thus define crystals to be arrested life.
Moreover, the results of all researches into the chemistry of organized bodies show that the proximate principles of the organism are disposable into three classes :
1. Principles of mineral origin which are crystallizable, and which quit the organism such as they entered it.
2. Principles which are crystallizable, formed in the organism, and generally quitting it in the shape of excremental products, such as they were at their formation.
3. Principles which are coagulable but not crystallizable, formed in the organism with the aid of materials for which the first class serve as a vehicle, and decomposed in the place of their formation, thus furnishing the materials for the principles of the second class.
These last are the only true organic principles, and are precisely demarcated from the crystallizable principles. We must not, therefore, look to crystals for the element of Form we are now seeking, simply because crystals never attain the teleorganic condition.
Confining ourselves, as we have done hitherto, to the teachings of observation and induction, we have to ask this question : What is the Form which being universal may be supposed indispensable to organic life?. Half the prosperity of philosophy lies in being able to put a definite question. Interrogate Nature, and she will answer. She answers in this case emphatically—a cell. The cell, or sphere, is not only the typical Form of an organic being, that with which every organic being, from the lowest to the highest, commences—it is the indispensable condition of the being's existence.
A cell is the whole of one of the simplest plants, such as the Protococcus ; and there are large plants which are nothing more than the association of myriads of such simple cells. The lowest type is thus a cell ; the second stage in advance is an association of cells ; the third, a transformation of those cells into a tissue; but in one and every case the starting-point of organic life is the assumption of cellular or spherical form.
On this point hear Mulder :—" The cell is a concave globule. This concave globule is an individual ; that is, in the most simple form in which it can possibly exist (in the lowest moulds), it possesses all the powers of the molecules united into one whole, and thus reduced to a state of equilibrium. This state depends not only on the nature of the substances and of their elements, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, or carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen ; but also on their form. The state of equilibrium, therefore, could not exist, unless this concave globular form existed. Moreover, this hollow globule possesses the whole of these forces in a state of mutual combination, co-operating for one end ; this being a peculiarity which also apparently depends on the globular form. Since these two ideas are founded on pure observation, we may steadfastly adhere to them, and therefore correctly infer that inorganic nature, besides all the peculiarities existing in the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, we must suppose, as a chief consequence of this, a tendency to form membraneous, concave, spherical little bodies, in which, because of this form, new peculiar properties manifest themselves, which cannot be brought out by other forms. Thus by matter and form, by form and matter, all that we observe in natur