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Charles Robin was the main opponent of cell theory in France during the period 1850-1880. My aim here is to understand this opposition in the light of the vast anatomo-physiological system developed by Robin during the second half of the 1840s. This system was based on a chemical and dynamical conception of living matter, and left no significant place for the cellular level. I also show that Robin’s explanatory principles were united themselves by a philosophic attitude marked by Comtian positivism. Like Auguste Comte, Robin never abandoned a certain hostility towards what was perceived in France as a direct updating of the principles of German Naturphilosophie. The last part of this study exposes the controversy which set Robin against Rudolf Virchow during the period 1866-1873. I will seize the occasion to put in perspective Robin’s legacy, and thus its real influence on the course of French biology