CHAPTER I 

 THE PROBLEM OF PATTERN 



Life manifests itself in the form of more or less 

 clearly denned and delimited entities which we call 

 individuals. Biologists are in general agreed that 

 some sort of order, unity, harmony or wholeness as it is 

 variously called, in short, some sort of integrating or 

 ordering factor or principle, effective in both space and 

 time, underlies organic individuality. An adequate 

 conception of physiological integration must afford a 

 basis not only for the spatial localization of parts and 

 for the sequence of events in time in the development 

 of the individual, but also for the functional relations of 

 both nervous and chemical character between parts. 

 And particularly it must account for the origin and 

 development of the nervous system as the organ of 

 integration par excellence. The present book is an 

 attempt to show at least that the nervous system does 

 not represent a new integration imposed in some way 

 upon primitive protoplasm, but rather a product, a 

 result of the primary integrating factors which make 

 the organism an orderly whole. 



PATTERN AND MATERIAL 



Like any other orderly entity the organic individual 

 presents two great problems, the problem of pattern 

 and the problem of material, and it is with the first of 

 these, the problem of pattern, that we are here chiefly 



