_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 organism. Both have in themselves the means of life, which they neither borrow nor take from their neighbours nor from the whole. All these inhabitants live in the same way, are nourished and breathe in the same manner, all possessing the same general faculties, those of man; but each has besides, his profession, his trade, his aptitudes, his talents, by which he contributes to social life, and by which in his turn he depends on it. Professional men, the mason, the baker, the butcher, the manufacturer, the artist, carry out different tasks and furnish different products, the more varied, the more numerous and the more differentiated, in proportion as the social state has reached a higher degree of perfection. The living being, animal or plant, is a city of this kind.