150 C. M. CHILD. 



progressive complication in the details of organismic pattern, 

 even though the same general features may exist in widely dif- 

 ferent stages of development and in widely different organisms, 

 and the course of this complication differs both in the develop- 

 ment of different species and in different lines of evolution. 



These facts as well as many others suggest that the primary 

 features of organismic pattern consist in a non-specific or quan- 

 titative order arising in some way in a protoplasm of specific 

 constitution. We must then, in attacking the problem of organ- 

 ismic pattern, attempt first of all to determine whether there is 

 any evidence for the existence of such a quantitative order as 

 the basis of organismic pattern, and, if we find such evidence, 

 how such an order originates in protoplasm. If the conclusion 

 stated above is correct, viz., that organismic pattern in the final 

 analysis must be determined, not by protoplasm alone, but by the 

 relations between protoplasm and its environment, the problem 

 of the origin of organismic pattern is the problem of determining 

 what particular relations give rise to the primary features of this 

 pattern and how. Two questions then are before us : what is 

 the nature of organismic pattern in its simplest or most primitive 

 stages or forms, and how does such pattern originate? 



THE SIMPLEST STAGES OF ORGANISMIC PATTERN. 



Surf ace -interior Pattern. The cell is primarily an organism, 

 though it may be integrated with other cells to form a part of a 

 multicellular organism. While we have no positive knowledge 

 concerning the origin of cell pattern, the structure of the cell in 

 general suggests that it is primarily what we may call a surface- 

 interior pattern. If this is true the differentiation of nucleus and 

 cytoplasm from the primitive protoplasm possessing in some de- 

 gree the functions of both, must have resulted in the first instance 

 from differences and relations between surface and interior. 

 Some organisms appear to be even simpler in pattern than the 

 -ordinary cell, but most of them are so minute and show so little 

 differentiation of parts that our knowledge of their pattern is 

 very fragmentary. Even in the simplest organisms, however, 

 we should expect to find at least a surface-interior pattern. In 

 the absence of any positive data, discussion of the origin of cell 



