THE PROBLEM OF PATTERN 5 



differs from the non-organismic. In the first place the 

 organismic pattern is fundamentally a molar, not a 

 molecular or atomic pattern, for it involves regions con- 

 sisting of many molecules usually of many different kinds. 

 The pattern of protoplasm is apparently submolecular, 

 molecular, and colloidal, but the organism involves some- 

 thing more, viz., an " organization' 1 ' of the protoplasm 

 into different molar regions of different constitution or 

 structure. Since these different regions or organs are 

 dynamically active and yet the organism is an orderly 

 whole, physicochemical relations of some sort must 

 exist between the different regions. These relations 

 again are not interatomic or intermolecular, like the 

 relations of ordinary chemical reactions, nor are they 

 like the relations between colloid particles. They are 

 inter-regional relations involving distances of much 

 greater order of magnitude than any of the relations in 

 purely protoplasmic pattern, so that they apparently 

 involve some sort of action at a distance or some means 

 of communication. 



In short the organismic pattern is of a very different 

 order of magnitude from the protoplasmic pattern, 

 involving molar dimensions far beyond those of any 

 protoplasmic constituent. It is a differentiation and 

 integration of different regions of protoplasm or of 

 different cells or cell groups and it evidently cannot be 

 interpreted in the same terms as protoplasmic pattern. 

 It may exist within the limits of a single cell or it may 

 involve millions of cells: it may be evanescent, tem- 

 porary, or readily modified by change in external 

 conditions, or it may be persistent to a high degree, but 

 in all cases it represents a pattern of a different order of 



