186 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 

 SPECIFIC ADAPTEDNESS NOT "ADAPTATION' 



It is important to keep well in mind our strictly 

 formulated theme, as by doing so we shall be able to 

 exclude at once from our materials a large group of 

 phenomena which occasionally have been called regulations 

 by physiological authors, but which, in fact, are not of the 

 adaptation type and therefore cannot be said to afford those 

 problems which possibly might have been expected. Typical 

 peculiarities in functional life cannot be called " regulations ; 

 for this very reason. If, for instance, the organism selects 

 specific amounts of specific kinds of organic food or of salts 

 out of the combinations of salts or organic food normally 

 offered to it in the medium, as indeed is most typically 

 shown for instance by the roots of plants, there cannot be 

 said to occur a " regulation ' : or " adaptation " with regard 

 to the permeability of the cell, nor is it strictly a case of 

 " regulation," if so-called selective qualities are discovered in 

 the processes of secretion, say of the epithelium of the kidney. 



All these facts are typical and specific peculiarities in 

 functioning which are duly to be expected, where a very 

 typical and specific organisation of the most elaborated kind 

 exists. Indeed, after studying such an organisation we 

 must not be astonished that functions in organisms follow 

 lines which certainly they would not have taken without it. 

 Take the fact which is quoted very often, that the migra- 

 tion of compounds or of ions in the organisms can happen 

 quite contrary to all the laws of osmosis, from the less 

 concentrated to the more concentrated side of a so-called 

 " membrane." There is no simple " membrane ' in the 

 organism, but a complicated organisation of an almost 



