IV THE CELL AND THE ORGANISM 79 



and behaviour? Or is there some co-ordinating factor which 

 influences the cells and their organs in some specific direc- 

 tion, and thus co-ordinates and unifies their functions and 

 produces the co-operation we observe? And if the cells are 

 not independent agents in the make-up of the organism but 

 are under some form of unifying influence or control, is their 

 apparent co-operation due to an external factor, like Natural 

 Selection as commonly understood? Or is there some 

 internal element of co-ordination, the influence of which is 

 felt by the different cells, and in response to which they 

 react, so that their functions proceed generally on the lines 

 of a plan or pattern given by the nature of the particular 

 organism? In either case there would be co-operation on 

 the basis of co-ordination, but in the one case there would 

 be an external, and in the other an internal, factor at work 

 in this co-ordination. It will be seen that the issue here 

 raised as between the cells inside the organism is analogous 

 to that which Darwinism has raised as between separate 

 organisms in their struggle for existence. The answer, so 

 far as the struggle among organisms is concerned, will be 

 discussed in Chapter VIII. And the results there reached 

 will probably apply also to the case of the cell or the cells 

 in an organism which is here raised. The subject is not 

 free from controversy, and in this chapter I wish to avoid 

 controversy and simply to describe the facts in the ordinary 

 language of metaphor which I trust will not prove mis- 

 leading. And looking at the facts in an unprejudiced 

 way, and without a bias in favour of any particular 

 theory, one cannot help being struck by the way in 

 which the cells in an organism not only co-operate, but 

 co-operate in a specific direction towards the fulfilment 

 and maintenance of the type of the particular organism 

 which they constitute. At this stage we have to steer clear/ 

 of all ideas of plan, purpose or teleology in the organicfi 

 procedure. But, even so, the impression is irresistible thaty 

 cell activities are co-operative, that they are inherently or| 

 through selective development co-ordinated in a specific t 

 direction, and that the impress of the whole which forms the) 

 organism is clearly stamped on all the details. The case 



