180 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



authors, especially by Klebs, Holmes, and Child : 1 it is 

 refuted I think by the simple fact that the first phase of 

 every process of restitution, be it regeneration proper or 

 be it a sort of harmonious differentiation, goes on without 

 functioning at all, and only for future functioning. 2 



And there has been advocated still another view in 

 order to amplify the sphere of adaptation : all individual 

 morphogenesis, not only restitution, is adaptation, it has 

 been said. In its strictest form such an opinion of course 

 would simply be nonsense : even specific adaptive structures, 

 such as those of bones, we have seen to originate in ontogeny 

 previous to all specific functions, though for the help of 

 them, to say nothing of the processes of the mere outlining 

 of organisation during cleavage and gastrulation. But they 

 are " inherited " adaptations, it has been answered to such 

 objections. To this remark we shall reply in another chapter* 

 It is enough to state at present that there is a certain kind 

 of, so to speak, architectonic morphogenesis, both typical and 

 restitutive, previous to specific functioning altogether. 



If now we try to resume the most general results from 

 the whole field of morphological adaptations, with the 

 special purpose of obtaining new material for our further 



1 What has been really proved to exist by the very careful studies carried 

 out by Child, is only certain cases of functional adaptation to mechanical 

 conditions of the strictest kind, and relating to the general mobility only, but 

 nothing more ; such adaptations can be said to accompany restitution. See, 

 for instance, Journ. exp. Zool. 3, 1906, where Child has given a summary of 

 his theory. 



2 Even in Vb'ch ting's experiments (see page 174, note 1), in which adapta- 

 tions are mixed with true restitutions in the closest possible manner, a few 

 phenomena of the latter type could most clearly be separated. The stimulus 

 which called them forth must have been one of the hypothetic sort alluded 

 to in a former chapter (see page 113). The best instances of true restitutions 

 were offered in those cases, where, after the removal of all the bulbs, typical, 

 starch-storing cells were formed without the presence of any starch. 



