THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT 2$<) 



of the preceding chapters have taught us something of how the 

 organization behaves. We have found that it can be affected by 

 external circumstances, even to such an extent that its polarity may 

 be reversed. We have seen that if an organized structure is broken 

 up into pieces, each piece may reorganize itself into a new 

 whole. The most familiar, and at the same time the most difficult 

 thing to understand, is that the organization is of such a kind that it 

 has the property of passing through a definite series of stages leading 

 to a typical result, and having reached its goal of throwing off organ- 

 ized bodies, or germ cells, that begin once more at the starting-point 

 and pass through the same cycle. The action of the organism is 

 sometimes compared to that of a machine, but we do not know of any 

 machine that has the property of reproducing itself by means of 

 parts thrown off from itself. 



These are some of the most characteristic phenomena exhibited 

 by the organization. In the final chapter some of the questions that 

 have been suggested in connection with the method of action of the 

 organization will be further discussed. 



