their living (see page 177). Such parasites, however, do act as whole or- 

 ganisms; they grow to maturity and reproduce themselves, even if they do 

 not rush around for supplies. 



To understand the human body or the body of any other living thing, 

 we have to study the parts. But when we analyze and anatomize, we find 

 that all the chemical elements in living bodies are present also in nonliving 

 things, although there they never form the same compounds. We find too 

 (see pages 19-20) that whatever goes on in a living thing may go on 

 also in nonliving things, although the various processes are never carried 

 on together in any nonliving thing. The parts of living beings may all be 

 the same as the parts of nonliving things; but the combination of parts in a 

 living thing is always unique, and it always acts as a whole. However 

 thoroughly we come to know the details, the details themselves have no 

 meaning except in terms of the whole animal or plant. 



What Brings About the Wholeness in a Living Thing? 



Wholes before Parts Before we can buy a steak, some apples, or a 

 fur coat, somebody has to raise entire cattle or apple trees, or a hunter has 

 to get a whole fox or rabbit. Our earliest experiences are with entire plants 

 and animals, entire human beings. In time we come to give attention to the 

 separate parts that we can use or to the parts that become injured and so 

 destroy the unity or effectiveness or well-being of the whole. And in time 

 we come to wonder how such diverse parts as we see in any common animal 

 or plant can keep working together. 



The microscope enables us to get more detailed information about the 

 parts of plants and animals. Most helpful has been the study of one-celled 

 organisms, in which the wholeness does not seem so hard to understand. 

 The parts here are all so close together, so directly connected, that we can 

 hardly see how any part of an ameba, for example, could be disturbed with- 

 out affecting all the rest. In the larger and more complex organisms the 

 connections are not so obvious. How does seeing an object at a distance 

 make all the muscles change their tensions or movements, or make the hair 

 stand on end, or change the rate of breathing ? How does an odor bring a 

 happy expression to the face, or how does another odor "turn the stomach" ? 



If we find it easy to see how the one-celled organism acts as a whole, it 

 may be helpful to remember that every larger organism was once a one- 

 celled being. The wholeness of a horse or a fish has grown up with it from 

 the beginning. However large an organism may get to be, however many 

 different kinds of organs or tissues It comes to have, it continues to be one. 



Unifying Processes' Ordinarily, we raise questions about the whole- 

 ness of an organism only when parts of the body fail to work harmoniously 



iSee No. 1, p. 337. 

 324 



