EVOLUTION AND HUMAN DESTINY 



individual, as it affects the orderliness of its internal 

 organization. 



What in effect takes place here is an error synthesis 

 of somatic material — a somatic mutation. A similar 

 process taking place in the germ cell of a multicellular 

 organism gives rise to the more familiar genetic muta- 

 tion. A little later we shall discuss the reason why the 

 result of a genetic mutation is so different from that 

 of a somatic mutation. At this point it is our object to 

 consider the effects of the less spectacular somatic 

 mutations. This distinction is of course somewhat diffi- 

 cult to apply to the unicellular organism where somatic 

 and genetic effects are not yet clearly differentiated and 

 where, as we shall see, the effect of a change in some 

 molecules of the cell may be somatic as well as genetic. 



In the cell the functions of the individual molecules 

 that constitute it are to some extent those of specializa- 

 tion. This specialized nature of the various constituent 

 molecules may be simply due to their position within 

 the cell, or may actually be the result of structural and 

 chemical differences among these molecules. There- 

 fore, "chance produced" changes in individual mole- 

 cules comprising the cell have a high probability of 

 adversely affecting the internal order of the cell. Its 

 entropy will increase and gradually as the damage 

 accumulates, its ability to function properly will be- 

 come impaired. This is precisely the effect that an 

 environment of a much higher entropy level should 



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