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    November 5, 1853.] THE LEADER, 1073

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    On taking up the Record, that "amusing p...

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    HUXLEY ON THE CELL-THEORY. The British a...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    The Magazines This Month Contain Much Th...

    night , while eternity lasted ; and how they were to be made to undergo in the spirit what they had so ruthlessly inflicted on others in the flesh—the horrors of paying their own flagitious reckonings . So minute , indeed , were these infernal arrangements for the entertainment of our earthly hosts , that , taking a hint from the-well-known proprietor of the Hotel Gibbon at ! Lausanrie , who had the honour of originating the charge for eveillage , it was admirably provided that , while the hotel-keepers are never permitted to slumber , by reason of the armies of fleas , and other nocturnal visitations , they are rigorously to be made to pay through the nose tor the service of "being roused from their beds after nights of sleepless torment . " Space only permits us to add , that Gteoegh : Gilfillan is very severe upon Shebidax in Hogg ' s ' Instructor , and that the Triad of Great \ Poets h concluded in this month ' s Tait .

    November 5, 1853.] The Leader, 1073

    November 5 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER , 1073

    On Taking Up The Record, That "Amusing P...

    On taking up the Record , that " amusing print , ' which delights our very " low Church , " we are always prepared for a large supply of the Christian malevolence emanating from men who regard doubts of eternal tortures in Hell as ¦ ' ¦ ' attempts to rob man of his last and greatest solace . " What , indeed , would be the " comfort" of Eeligion if we did not believe that our adversaries would roast ? But among the outrages on truth and decency to which the piety of the Record . impels it , there is , this week , a manifestation of pruriency which we single out for notice , because it is one of the errors needful to be exposed . A lady writes to the Editor complaining that the " disgusting human form" ( which , by the way , seems to be as alluring , as it is disgusting ) is getting familiarized to the British eye through the medium of Art ; and the consequences of this familiarity with " Grod ' s image" are too dreadful to be named . She assures us : —

    • " I can say with truth that my wnmarried sisters have literally shuddered at our Breakfast-table , when some of these Italian boys have stood before mw window with statues of the Greek Slave , taller than my eldest child ; and even my little girl had sense enough to ask if I did not think it ' very indelicate to have such naked statues in the streets ? ' laterally , one is afraid to cast a glance in the shop windows , at some of the very beautiful prints , for fear of finding , close behind some historical or other picture , one of these disgusting portraits of the human ¦ form . " Certain I am that Englishwomen generally would deeply regret the continuance , to say nothing of the increase , of nudity in pictures and statues . I was sorry to see that two statues of Venus , and another heathen specimen of immodesty , were erected at the fountains of Osborne . "

    To our apprehension it seems that minds must have been perverted by education , if plaster casts of statues , not in themselves suggestive of voluptuous thoughts , can so " set the blood ablaze . " We do not lay claim to any peculiar coldness of temperament , yet it is absolutely impossible for us to place ourselves imaginatively in the state of mind which could be tempted " by a statue or a picture , not obviously designed for that effect . This good lady , however , tliinks differently : — '' I should be very sorry to see my children ( of whom I have a goodly number ) growing up with more temptations to evil thoughts and desires than I found around me when I was a girl . "

    She fears the evil thoughts suggested by such things , believes they would constitute " temptations . " In such belief , on the part of a woman , wo see nothing but the distorted perception resulting from an unnatural education . But it is different with the Editor of the Record . Men have no such educations . They are not taught from infancy upwards to " shudder" at statues ; and when the Editor of the Record appends such comments as those Avhich follow , we can only attribute them to pruriency or hypocrisy : — "We thank our correspondent for her excellent remarks . When a man or woman can complacently look upon a naked figure without any of that sense of shame felt b y Adam and Eve after tho fall , this is a proof of the fine edge of their

    moral feelings being already blunted . Our correspondent ' s child only obeyed the pure and healthy impulses of her moral instincts , when she aaked if it were not ' very indelicate to have such naked statues in the streets . ' " The offensive exhibitions so loudly complained of have been too much tolerated , perhaps , by many of our fair countrywomen ; and we fear that tho high son . se of principle and refinement of moral feeling for which English women were always ho diatinguiHhed , lias in some degree been deteriorated by frequent intercourse witli the Continent . 3 b not the introduction of the immodest and unbecoming' continental fashion of low

    very drcRues , ono of the evil results of too much familiarity with licentious works of art ? We fool , however , assured that Christian mothers , " and all serious religious professors , will exhibit to tho world , in thin respect , a better tasfco and nioro chastened spirit , following tho apostolic injunction , ' 1 will , also , that Women adorn thomtiolvefl in modout apparel , with fshamefacedness and sobriety . ' Let them protest , each in their own circle , against all demoralizing exhibitions of "worlfH of art , and they will go far in putting them down , and purifying the present relaxed public standard of moral feeling ; for women are , in an eminent dogree , the guardians of public morals in ovory nation . "

    Am a matter of fuel our reverend " liecortlito" should be told that ho far from the fashion oflow dresses coming from our recent intercom-Ho with tho Continent , all over the Continent it j ' h a matter of Hurpri . so that Knp ; - liHluvonien are ho ( hiring in that respect .. But ](> f , the t ' n »\ iion come whenco it may , it Iuih nothing to do with Art , and only prurient Hiincoptibility could see in Art a licentious influonoe . It m truo Much pruriency has < touo ho , from time immemorial . Tart-ufa wiuvlilco our " Reoordito , " unable to bco tho naltod Hhouldera of Dorinc , and iiiBintod on her covering thorn :- — " Oouvroz ceHein quo jo no saurois voir

    Par do paroils objets Ioh dines sont hloHsden lit cela fait venir dc coupablcs pcmfies . " Yea , in a gross TaHvfo the flight tniggosfcccl wicked though to ; but to Doriiw ' it nimplo mind that Diet only proved how easily Jie was moved . " Vouh 6 toH done bum temlro a la tentation ISt la chair « ur votfluouu lw . it fcjrauUp iinnrwwion !

    Certes , je ne sais paa qtlelle chaleur vous monte : Mais h . convoiter , moi , je ne suis point si prompte . " People of narrow minds and strong animal propensities may certainly iind temptations in a variety of objects , which are not naturally suggestive of voluptuous thoughts ; but it is the sign of a vicious or perverted mind , when , instead of appealing to the intellect and sentiments , a work of Art appeals in any way to the animal propensities ; and all the cant about

    delicacy is not only false delicacy , but breeds the very evil it would check It is by such refinement that America puts trousers on the legs of a pianoforte ; for are they not legs , and do not naked legs suggest ideas P Nay , ought the word " naked" itself to be permitted—does it not tend to " blunt the edge of our moral feelings P" And when orators use the phrase " naked vigour and resolution , " ought we not to put up our fans and stuff our licentious ears with cotton ? Swift says , " a nice man is a man with nasty ideas . " The Record has few ideas , and half of them are nasty .

    Huxley On The Cell-Theory. The British A...

    HUXLEY ON THE CELL-THEORY . The British and Foreign Medical Jteview . No . XXIV . October , 1853 . Price 6 s . S . Higbley According to promise we return to this number of the British and Foreign Medical Review , to consider Mr . Huxley ' s valuable and somewhat startling paper on the Cell-Theory , as it is at present understood . It is a paper calculated to stimulate thought , and prevent the stagnation of acquiescent minds ; but it is also , from its very power , calculated to mislead , and we feel it necessary to question Mr . Huxley ' s positions with the same freedom he has used towards Schleiden and Schwann . To begin our objections ; the general impression derived from the article is , that Mr . Huxley knocks down Schleiden and Schvann , and sets up in

    their place an older philosopher whom he has discovered . When we say discovered , we mean as regards the actual significance of his writings ; for although Wolff ' s writings have been tolerably well known in Germany , it is only , we believe , in Mr . Huxley ' s hands that they have been found to anticipate ( in a somewhat correcter form ) , the doctrines of Schleiden and Schwann . It is true that Mr . Huxley also discovers in a vague sentence quotedfrom Actuarius , " a concise expression of the cell theory such as may be found in many a handbook of the day . So far , " he adds , " and no further , have three centuries brought us I" This small passage renders us suspicious of his Wolfian discovery ; the more so as he does not quote W ^ olff , but interprets him thus :

    " Wolff ' s doctrine concerning histological development is shortly this . Every organ , he says ; is composed at first of a little mass of clear , viscous , nutritive fluid , which possesses no organization of any kind , but is at most composed of globules . In this semi-fluid mass , cavities ( BUischen , Zellcn ) are now develo ped ; these , if they remain rounded or polygonal , become the subsequent cells—if they elongate , the vessels ; and the process is identically the same , whether it ia examined in the vegetating point of a plant , or in the young budding organs of an animal . Both cells and vessels may subsequently be thickened , by deposits from the ' solidescible' nutritive fluid . In the plant , the cells at first communicate , but subsequently become separated from one another ; in the animal , they always

    remain in communication . In each case , they are mere cavities , and not independent entities ; organization is not effected l > y them , but they are the visible results of the action of the organizing power inherent in the living mass , or what Wolff calls the vis essentialis . For him , however , this ' vis essentialis' ia no mythical archams , but simply a convenient namo for two facts which he takes a great deal of trouble to demonstrate ; the first ,, the existence in living tissues ( hefore any passages are developed in them ) of currents of the nutritious fluid determined to particular parts by some power winch is independent of all external influence ; and the second , the peculiar changes of form and composition , which take place in tho samo manner .

    " Now there is really no very great difference between these views of the mode of development of tho tissues , and those of Schleiden and Schwann . The ' Bolidescible nutritive fluid' of Wolff is tho ' cytoblasteina' of Schleiden and Schwann ; with the exception of the supposed relation of tlie nucleus to the development of the coll ( which , as wo shall see , is incorrect ) Wolff ' s description of the latter process is nearly that of Schloiden ; Wolff maintains that the ' vobhoIh' of plante aro the result of the greater activity of tho nutritive currents in particular direotiouB ; and so docs Schleiden . " JNTow , considering tlio notorious erudition of Gorman philosophers , tJio enmity which Schloidou ' s caustic criticisms have excited , and the claims of

    originality Hot up by both Schloiden and ScUwarm never contradicted , it doeH to un seem very incredible that this claim set up for Wolff hIiouM never before have boon alluded to . Schlciden and Hugo von Mohl both quote Wolff ; indeed , tho great teacher of . 'E pigenisia was not likely to have boon overlooked by them or others . Our belief is thai ; Mr . Huxley , fully poHsesHed of all tho details of tho cell-theory , has read into Wolff " what Wolff never conceived ; as , to use an extreme ill lustration , Uacon read physical theories in the " Witulom of tho Ancients . " Thus much in historical rectification . With regard to the speculative portions of Mr . Huxley '*) paper , amid much that in admirable and miggeBtive , we porcoive with regret a tnctaphydml leaven , of which he noema unconscious . TIiuh , in kin—¦

    CONTRAST 1 UCTWKICN WOLi'lf AND SCHWANN . "In the ' Theoria ( jjonorationiH , ' and in fcho . cHHay on the vital forqoN published thirty years afterwardf ) , Wolif developed Home vary remarkable views on the relation of life to organization- —of the vital proc « HHi *» s to the organic elumehtn—in which ho diverges very widely from all who preceded , and from moHt who havo followed him , — -most of all from Schleiden and & chw » nn . Wo may best exhibit tho bearing of these viewH by contracting them with thoHO of the latter writers . "Schioidon and Schwann teach implicitly that tho primary hwtological olomontn ( cells ) are independent , anatomically and physiologically ; that , they stand in tho relation of causes or centres , to organization and tho ' organizing force ; ' and that the whole organism jh the roHult of tho union and combined action of theno primarily Hoparato olomontn . Wolff , on the other hand , nmtirtu that tho primary histological elements ( coIIh too , but not always defined hi th <> same way ) arc not either anatomically or physiologically independent ; that they stand in the relation of effects to tho organizing or vital force ( vis oHHentialin ); and that the organism nv-• ults from tJio ' differentiation" of a primarily homogonooun whole into thoso parts ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 5, 1853, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05111853/page/17/