144 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



impossible to imagine even by analogy how the organism 

 could " know " that any substance when taken in either by 

 the intestine or by the skin will poison it. But it is 

 possible to imagine that the organism knows how to act, 

 whenever the functional state of its life is on the point 

 of becoming disturbed, and that it then does something to 

 repair the disturbance. In fact we have noticed that " anti- 

 bodies " are not formed till after poisons have entered the 

 organism, and we have noticed changes in the permeability 

 of surfaces that do not occur until after the abnormal 

 specific exchange of material between the medium and the 

 fluid of the organism had gone on for some time. 1 



1 The concept of "function" may seem to require a little further logical 

 sifting in this place beyond what was said about it in the first volume (pp. 

 168 if.). In the strict meaning of the term a part of an organism ia 

 "functioning" when it performs that kind of specific metabolism which 

 is normal to it ; the totality of all the normal metabolic performances 

 of the parts of the organism is its "normal functional state." If this state 

 is disturbed from without, "adaptation" may restore it; this adaptation 

 consists in a specific change of the functioning of a specific part. So far 

 everything, it seems to me, is quite clear, and so far the concept of "func- 

 tioning" was discussed at great length in the first volume of this work. 

 But the word "functioning" may also be applied in a certain other sense : 

 not relating to the performance of a certain organ as such, but to the relation 

 or effect of this performance with regard to other parts of the same organism, 

 or even the whole organism. It is the "function" of the cells of the pan- 

 creas to secrete trypsin ; let us call this their " proper function. " But by 

 secreting trypsin the pancreatic cells prepare material for assimilation by all 

 the other organs of the individual : that is the " harmonious function " of the 

 pancreas. And in the same way it is the "proper" function of the cells of 

 the bones to secrete salts, whilst it is their "harmonious " function to support 

 the organism mechanically. We now see what "adaptation " of the disturbed 

 " functional state " of the organism, carried out by a change of functioning in 

 a certain part of it, really means teleologically. The harmonious function of 

 a certain part its role in the total unity of the living individual, in other 

 words had been disturbed by disturbing the "functional state" from with- 

 out : and this disturbance of harmonious functioning, or the harmony of func- 

 tioning, is rectified by adaptation. Indeed, only because it leads to the 

 restoration of this harmony, is the change of the "proper" functioning of the 

 organ in question adaptive. 



