grafted, merely for the sake of convenience. Hence, we are led farther and farther from the real truth, and this is why, in order to explain the phenomena of heredity, we find ourselves compelled to intercalate hypothetical elements between micellæ and the microsome in the higher hierarchy quoted above—gemmules, pangenes, plasomes, which are only mental pictures or simple images to represent them.
§ 4. The Individuality of Complex Beings.
Law of the Constitution of Organisms.
Individuality of Complex Beings.—From the cellular
doctrine follows a remarkably suggestive conception
of living beings. The metazoa and the metaphytes—that
is to say, the multicellular living beings which
may be seen with the eyes and do not require the
microscope to reveal them—are an assemblage of
anatomical elements and the posterity of a cell.
The animal or the plant, instead of being an
individual unity, is a "multitude," a term which is
used by Goëthe himself when pondering, in 1807, over
the doctrine taught by Bichat; or, according to the
equally correct expression of Hegel, it is a "nation";
it springs from a common cellular ancestor, just as
the Jewish people sprang from the loins of Abraham.
We now picture to ourselves the complex living being, animal or plant, with its configuration which distinguishes it from every other being, just as a populous city is distinguished by a thousand characteristics from its neighbour. The elements of this city are independent and autonomous for the same reason as the anatomical elements of the
