THE PROBLEM OF PATTERN 3 



material is the other great problem involved in indi- 

 viduality. In the case of the organism this problem 

 includes the physicochemical constitution of protoplasm 

 in the broadest sense. This problem of material 

 resolves itself again at each step into new problems of 

 pattern and material. For example, the cell is the 

 material of which multicellular organisms are composed, 

 but the cell involves a problem of pattern and of material. 

 The cell consists of protoplasm, and the two problems 

 of pattern and material exist for protoplasm as well as 

 for the multicellular organism and the cell, and not only 

 for protoplasm, but for each colloid particle, each 

 proteid, each molecule, and, if we conceive the term 

 "material' broadly, each atom. This is merely a 

 statement of the fact that entities or individuals of 

 certain kinds or degree of complexity, each with its own 

 pattern and material, may be integrated to form more 

 complex individualities which again may serve as 

 material for a new integration and so on. The problem 

 with which we are here primarily concerned is the 

 problem of the nature and origin of the pattern which 

 constitutes the organism as a whole, whether it consists 

 of one cell or many, in short, the problem of organismic 1 

 pattern. While pattern constitutes the basis for an 

 ordering, an integration of the material, it must neces- 

 sarily be of a sort that is possible in the material. Cer- 

 tain types of building, mechanically impossible in 



1 In view of the fact that the word "organism," which implies the 

 existence of a unity and order in the entity so designated, is universally 

 accepted and employed, the word "organismic" is not only biologi- 

 cally and etymologically justified but fills a need which is becoming 

 more and more apparent. The word was used by Rhumbler some 

 fifteen years ago (1905). Ritter (1919) has used the word "organismal" 

 with a somewhat different connotation. 



