14 THE ORIGIN OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



definite and orderly differences in different regions, and 

 second, of some means of transportation between the 

 regions, parts, or organs concerned. Between regions 

 which are identical in protoplasmic constitution no 

 definite and orderly transportative correlation of the 

 organismic type is possible. Evidently organismic 

 pattern of some sort must exist to some extent before 

 transportative correlation can arise. In short, it is at 

 once evident that, however important transportative 

 correlation may be in the growth, differentiation, func- 

 tion, and maintenance of parts or organs, it cannot con- 

 stitute the first step in organismic integration, because 

 this first step concerns the origin of the localized differ- 

 ences which make transportative correlation possible. 

 The material exchanges between the constituents of 

 protoplasm involve, of course, electronic, atomic, or 

 molecular transportation, but it is the ordering and 

 localizing of these exchanges with respect to proto- 

 plasmic or multicellular masses, regions, and organs 

 that is the characteristic feature of organismic trans- 

 portative correlation, and this is possible only on the 

 basis of a pattern of a higher order of magnitude than 

 the protoplasmic pattern. 



The protoplasmic pattern alone does not seem to 

 afford any mechanism for the origination of this larger 

 pattern, but such a pattern may of course arise through 

 the relation of protoplasm to external factors. When, 

 for example, some portion of the surface of an Amoeba 

 comes in contact with and ingests food, the reaction 

 itself presupposes the existence of an organismic pattern 

 in the Amoeba, but as a result of the reaction a new kind 

 of organismic pattern arises temporarily, i.e., a food 



