THE PROBLEM OF PATTERN 21 



else it must be dependent upon a non-mechanistic 

 principle, as the vitalists maintain. 



CONCLUSION 



Leaving out of consideration the purely contactual 

 or mechanical relation as obviously not of fundamental 

 importance in this connection, there remain two chief 

 categories of relation between protoplasm and its 

 environment, the material or chemical and the dynamic 

 or excitatory. These two types of relation appear in 

 all organisms, the one being concerned with nutrition, 

 respiration, excretion, i.e., the material exchange in 

 general, the other with behavior in the broad sense. I 

 have pointed out that the excitation-transmission rela- 

 tion is apparently the most generalized and most 

 primitive factor in organismic pattern (p, 17). Lest 

 this statement be misunderstood it may be pointed out 

 that it does not mean that in the relations between 

 protoplasm and the environment excitation is any more 

 primitive or fundamental than the material relation. 

 Material exchange between protoplasm and environ- 

 ment is of course necessary for the continuance of life 

 in protoplasm, and there can be no doubt that in nature 

 material exchange and excitation are closely associated. 

 I would merely maintain that the excitation- transmission 

 relation, whether it arises in connection with material 

 exchange or through a purely dynamic action of external 

 factors is a more generalized and more primitive factor 

 in the organismic pattern arising on the protoplasmic 

 substratum. Material exchange is primarily a matter 

 of protoplasmic pattern and not necessarily organismic, 

 but the excitation-transmission relation is always 



