140 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



ought to exist in the portion V^ which is equal to V in 

 amount, and also in V 2 , in V 3 , F 4 and so on. Indeed, 

 there do exist almost indefinitely many F n , all of which 

 can perform the whole morphogenesis, and all of which 

 therefore ought to possess the machine. But these different 

 portions F u are only partly different from each other in 

 spatial relation. Many parts of F 2 are also parts of Fj and 

 of F 3 and of F" 4 , and so on ; that is to say, the different 

 volumes F n overlap each other successively and in such a 

 manner that each following one exceeds the preceding one 

 in the line by a very small amount only. But what then 

 about our machines ? Every volume which may perform 

 morphogenesis completely must possess the machine in its 

 totality. As now every element of one volume may play 

 any possible elemental role in every other, it follows that 

 each part of the whole harmonious system possesses any 

 possible elemental part of the machine equally well, all 

 parts of the system at the same time being constituents of 

 different machines. 



A very strange sort of machine indeed, which is the 

 same in all its parts (Fig. 14) ! 



But we have forgotten, I see, that in our operation 

 the absolute amount of substance taken away from the 

 system was also left to our choice. From this feature 

 it follows that not only all the different F" n , all of the 

 same size, must possess the hypothetic machine in its 

 completeness, but that all amounts of the values F n n, 

 n being variable, must possess the totality of the machine 

 also : and all values F n n, with their variable n, may again 

 overlap each other. 



Here we are led to real absurdities ! 



