THE GENESIS OF LIVING ORGANISMS 179 



Even the rule of inter-adjustment, which plays the chief 

 part in the function-circles of animals, we found again in 

 human implements ; these enter into a framework with one 

 another, though only temporarily, and from this framework 

 we can deduce the function-rule. 



Indeed it is possible, up to a certain point, to imagine 

 machines possessing a mark-rule and an action-rule, as though 

 they were animals. But such rules are not susceptible of any 

 change, for machines consist entirely of a fixed framework, 

 and all the rules that can be deduced from their spatial struc- 

 ture and their functions are human rules ; these do not belong 

 to the machines, but are introduced into them from without. 

 Consequently they can be altered only from without, by 

 human intervention. And that is why we say that the 

 running of machines is conditioned. When machines wear out 

 or are injured, their function-rule cannot immediately come 

 to the rescue, as would happen if they were organisms ; an 

 organism has its function-rule within itself, and in protoplasm 

 the material which the rule independently employs for repair- 

 ing the damage. 



From the way organisms behave, we become convinced 

 that it is the function-rule itself which is able to make the 

 framework. We were confirmed in this opinion by the 

 behaviour of the unicellular protoplasmic animals, which 

 form for themselves the necessary framework, and destroy it 

 again in accordance with the function-rule controlling the 

 action. In this way, the rule of digestion of Paramecium 

 caused mouth, stomach and anus to appear, and then to dis- 

 appear again, one after the other. 



We found that, in all these cases, it is the function-rule 

 that governs the impulse-sequence in the protoplasm. 

 And so we might easily assume that this rule guides the 

 whole process of organogeny, from the germ onwards. 



The study of the genesis of the living organism has shown 



