Organization 453 



doubtless cannot be solved by any simple or single hypothesis. It is essen- 

 tially one of synthesis, in which evidence from many sources must be 

 coordinated. For discussions of it the reader is referred to the publications 

 of Agar (1951), von Bertalanffy (1952), Child (1941), Driesch (1937), 

 Holmes (1948), Lillie (1945), Meyer (1935), Needham (1936), Reinke 

 (1922), E. S. Russell (1933), Smuts (1926), Troll (1928), Ungerer 

 (1926), Wardlaw (1955c), Weiss (1950), Whyte (1954), and Woodger 

 (1929). Woodger's discussion of the concept of organism (1930, 1931) 

 is particularly useful. 



The position that a biologist assumes toward this problem will usually 

 be determined more by his attitudes and predilections than by the con- 

 flicting and inconclusive evidence that is now available. To those who 

 assume that all organic traits must have been produced by natural selec- 

 tion, both normal and regenerative development will be regarded as the 

 result of a long-continued selective process. Holmes (1948) and others 

 have supported this view, and it is probably held by a majority of biol- 

 ogists who have considered the matter. Aside from the general presump- 

 tion in its favor, there is some positive evidence for this position in the 

 fact that organized, regulatory development is not invariable but some- 

 times breaks down. There are many examples of this in the various types 

 of abnormal growth. Sometimes, as in teratological structures, only the 

 last developmental stages become confused and irregular, but when the 

 breakdown is more complete, tumors, galls, and other amorphous struc- 

 tures are produced. Finally, in tissue culture, all traces of multicellular 

 organization seem to have vanished. There evidently are various levels 

 of organization, and it is reasonable to suggest that the more complex 

 ones have gradually evolved from the simpler because of the presumptive 

 advantages that a highly organized system has. 



There are some difficulties with this hypothesis, however. In the break- 

 down of visible regulation the organizing capacity itself has not been 

 lost, for such abnormal structures as fasciations may revert to normal 

 growth again, and in amorphous galls and tissue cultures growing points 

 may appear which develop into typical plants. Single cells from a tissue 

 culture may produce normal organisms. There is no necessary connection 

 between the genetic constitution of the individual (which is what is 

 presumably modified by natural selection) and the appearance, or lack 

 of it, of a visible state of organization. Furthermore, it must be remem- 

 bered that even where gross visible organization has broken down, the 

 living cells themselves are small organized systems with a complex 

 though often submicroscopic structure and with a very considerable de- 

 gree of physiological self -regulation. Indeed, if all organization disappears, 

 death ensues. Organization seems to be a fundamental quality of living 

 things, explain it in whatever way we can, rather than a simple trait 



