138 THE BIOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF TO-DAY 



of these rudiments, some in one set of cells, others 

 in another, come to develop, according to the part 

 of the whole in which the cells come to lie during 

 the progress of the development, and according to 

 the relations to the whole they come to assume. 

 Thus, here they assume the characters of the external 

 skin; there, they become gland-cells of the intestine ; 

 here, muscle-fibres; there, sense-cells or nerve-cells ; 

 in one place they serve the whole organism, in the 

 form of blood- corpuscles, as agents for nutrition 

 and respiration ; there, becoming connective tissue 

 or bone, they form skeletal elements of the body. 



Thus, during the course of development, they are 

 forces external to the cells that bid them assume the 

 individual characters appropriate to their individual 

 relations to the whole ; the determining forces are 

 not within the cells, as the doctrine of determinants 

 supposes. The cells develop those characters that 

 are suggested by their relation to the external 

 world and their places in the whole organism. 



But I must insist here that the subordination of 

 the cells to the whole organism, in both multicellular 

 animals and in plants, is much more complicated 

 than that of the units to the human state. In the 

 latter case, the individuals are separate from one 

 another; they are independent organisms and are 

 bound together only in social relations. None the 

 less, consider how in a civilized state the apparently 

 sovereign individual is conditioned in all his circum- 

 stances; how each change in the general state 

 exercises an influence on the individual's disposi- 

 tion freedom of will, and method of life (dwelling, 



