148 C. M. CHILD. 



the fundamental problems of biology. The organism consists in 

 each particular case of a certain material, a protoplasm pos- 

 sessing a specific inherited constitution and it represents a certain 

 pattern which is in some way established in this material, and the 

 problem of organismic integration includes both the problem of 

 pattern and the problem of material. Pattern in the sense in 

 which the word is used here is not merely nor primarily the vis- 

 ible morphological order and arrangement of parts or organs, but 

 rather the underlying physiological order and relation of which 

 the visible morphological order is one result, and the problem of 

 pattern is the problem of the nature of this order. But since 

 organismic pattern always appears in the material which we call 

 protoplasm it is evident that the problem of material, i.e., the 

 problem of the physico-chemical constitution of each particular 

 protoplasm in which the pattern appears is also of fundamental 

 importance. Obviously organismic pattern must be of a kind 

 which is possible in the protoplasm in which it appears and to this 

 extent pattern must depend upon and be determined by the nature 

 of the material. Moreover, protoplasm itself possesses a pattern, 

 that is to say the problem of material resolves itself again into 

 problems of pattern and material, the material in this case con- 

 sisting of the various constituents of protoplasm, colloid par- 

 ticles, lipoids, electrolytes, water, etc., and the pattern of the 

 order and the relation of these constituents. Similarly for each 

 constituent of a protoplasm the two problems exist and so on 

 until we attain the fundamental conceptions underlying physics 

 and chemistry. 



At present, however, we are primarily concerned with the 

 question of the organismic order or pattern as it appears in the 

 protoplasmic material and we must accept protoplasm with its 

 physico-chemical constitution and pattern as given, and attempt 

 to determine how the organism differs from and arises out of 

 protoplasm. 



Organismic pattern appears in general to be of a different 

 order of magnitude from protoplasmic pattern. It involves the 

 appearance of orderly differences in and relations between 

 regions or masses of protoplasm or cells each of which may pos- 

 sess the entire protoplasmic pattern. This fact alone presents 



