66 HOLISM AND EVOLUTION chap. 



cell-structure, the functions it performs are so many-sided, 

 delicate, and complex that one may safely say that the cell 

 must have an immensely complex organisation, and that the 

 details of its constitution may never be fully known or even 

 adequately pictured by the human mind. It represents, at 

 the one end of the scale of existence, a minute detailed com- 

 plexity which is in some sense comparable to the wonders 

 of the astronomical universe at the other end. And all this 

 intricate and complex little system is maintained in a state 

 of active, moving equilibrium; it is dynamic through and 

 through and incessantly active in all its details, and its 

 almost innumerable activities are finely adjusted to each 

 other and co-ordinated into a harmonious process, which not 

 only maintains its balanced functioning for its individual 

 life, but increases and improves it in the duration of innu- 

 merable generations. Looking at this baffling mystery of 

 active, continually changing and developing organisation, 

 with its continuous delicate readjustments of innumerable 

 moving parts into one co-ordinated forward movement, we 

 find that ordinary physical categories of description fail us. 

 We feel in the presence of an entirely new phenomenon, 

 which we call life, and we may even feel tempted to go 

 further and to say that the cell has not only life but also 

 mind. To do so would, however, be going too far, as I shall 

 explain later. 



To appreciate the position more fully let us look at some 

 of the functions of the cell. It is very difficult to realise it, 

 and yet it is the fact, that the little microscopic or ultra- 

 microscopic cell probably does all or most that the plant or 

 animal is known to do. It literally breathes or respires; 

 it takes in, manipulates, digests and assimilates its food; it 

 reproduces its kind; it grows, decays and dies; it heals 

 itself when sick and restores itself when a breakage takes 

 place. It develops special means and mechanisms to assist 

 it in carrying out these operations, and it co-ordinates and 

 regulates all its manifold activities in a way which implies 

 some wonderful central control of all these functions. Let 

 us look at these operations with a little more detail. 



