188 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



PRIMARY AND SECONDARY ADAPTATIONS IN PHYSIOLOGY 



We approach the subject of true adaptations, that is, of 

 adapting processes, as soon as any kind of variation in 

 functioning occurs which corresponds to a variation of any 

 factor of the medium in the widest sense. But even here 

 our work is by no means done by simply showing such a 

 correspondence of outer and inner variations. We know 

 very well already, from our former studies, that now we are 

 faced by a further problem, that we are faced by the 

 question whether we have to deal with simple primary 

 kinds of adaptations or with the far more important 

 secondary ones. 



As the discrimination between primary and secondary 

 regulations proves indeed to be of first-rate importance, you 

 will allow me, I hope, to summarise our chief analytical 

 statements regarding them in a most general form. We call 

 primary regulatory any kind of niorphogenetic or functional 

 performance, which, by its very intimate nature, always 

 serves to keep the whole of organisation or of functions in 

 its normal state. We call secondary regulations all features 

 in the whole of morphogenesis or of functioning which serve 

 to re-establish the normal state after disturbances along lines 

 which are outside the realm of so-called normality. This 

 analytical discrimination will help us very much to a proper 

 understanding of physiology. But before we turn to apply 

 our definitions to actual facts, another preliminary problem 

 has to be solved. 



