6 THE ORIGIN OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



magnitude from the protoplasmic pattern, and there- 

 fore involves integrating and ordering factors which 

 must be different, at least in degree, from those con- 

 cerned in protoplasmic integration. 



Manifestly an adequate conception of the nature of 

 organismic integration and pattern is essential to the 

 progress of biology, because all except the most super- 

 ficial knowledge of the organism as a whole must be 

 based upon such a conception. Without it the data of 

 biological research have a significance in relation to the 

 living organism somewhat like that of the house- 

 wrecker's stock in trade to the house. 



THE ORIGIN OF ORGANISMIC PATTERN 



In order to find a point of departure for further 

 attack on the problem it is necessary to consider first 

 whether organismic pattern is inherent in protoplasm or 

 imposed upon it from without. In other words, does 

 organismic pattern develop, so to speak, spontaneously 

 out of protoplasm or the cell, or is it in some sense a 

 response to environmental factors ? 



Any extended historical consideration of the problem 

 of the origin of pattern or integration in organisms is 

 impossible at this time, but it may be pointed out that 

 the preformists, and notably among them Weismann, 

 have simply assumed as inherent in protoplasm such 

 integration and pattern as seemed to be necessary and 

 have described it in terms of hypothetical entities of 

 some sort. Essentially the same point of view persists 

 among those who postulate a definite, persistent mor- 

 phological pattern in the chromosome (Morgan, 1919, 

 chap. xix). Preformistic theory offers us nothing but 



