166 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



distribution regulation is based, and thus we may be said 

 to have studied some types of regulation more or less 

 indirectly when analysing potencies. 



It therefore seems to me that we shall have hopes of a 

 successful issue to our inquiries, if we now, on passing to 

 what is called the physiology of the vegetative functions, 

 proceed to focus our attention on the concept of regulation 

 as such. And that 'is what we shall do : on our way 

 through the whole field of physiology, we shall always stop 

 at any occurrence that has any sort of regulatory aspect, 

 and shall always ask ourselves what this feature has to 

 teach us. 



But let us first try to give a proper definition of our 

 concept. We shall understand by "regulation" any occurrence 

 or group of occurrences on a living organism which takes 

 place after any disturbance of its organisation or normal 

 functional state, and which leads to a reappearance of this 

 organisation or this state, or at least to a certain approach 

 thereto. Organisation is disturbed by any actual removal 

 of parts ; the functional state may be altered by any change 

 among the parts of the organism on the one hand, by any 

 change of the conditions of the medium on the other ; for 

 physiological functioning is in permanent interaction with 

 the medium. It is a consequence of what we have said 

 that any removal of parts also changes the functional state 

 of the organism, but nevertheless organisation is more than 

 a mere sum of reactions in functional life. All regulations 

 of disturbances of organisation may be called restitutions, 

 while to regulations of functional disturbances we shall 

 apply the name adaptations. It is with adaptations that we 

 have to deal in the following. 



