224 THEORETICAL BIOLOGY 



from dead matter, even when they both show the same frame- 

 work. This can be proved very strikingly by division. If 

 a dead cell is cut in two, the framework is brought to naught, 

 and the material halved ; if a living cell divides, here likewise 

 the original framework is annihilated and the material is 

 halved, but nevertheless the subject is doubled, for now two 

 like rules are present, which regenerate the framework in 

 both halves of the material. Through division, this material, 

 like all other, is reduced ; but the rule cannot be reduced 

 because it is an absolute unity. But neither can it increase ; 

 it can only become duplicate. 



The recognition of this gives us an insight into the remark- 

 able organisation of the subject, which is built up not of parts 

 but of whole subjects. 



For simplicity's sake, we have hitherto described the 

 cell from which all living beings are built up as a morphological 

 building-stone, the bodily and material properties of which 

 pass over completely into the framework of the whole, and 

 serve only the framework of the whole body. 



This, however, is not quite accurate. Each living cell of 

 the body remains an independent subject, possessing an 

 autonomous rule of function. Each cell retains both its 

 vegetative and its animal functions, but these are now 

 devoted to the service of the whole. Like the free-living 

 amoeba, every living cell has to capture food, and has to 

 carry on metabolism. But the food is brought to it in the 

 body already so well prepared that it is deprived of the func- 

 tion of digestion, and can straightway make the food a part 

 of itself. Like the free-living amoeba, every cell of the body 

 possesses the power of transforming stimuli into excitation, 

 and has some limited power of movement. In every cell, 

 therefore, there is a modified reflex arc. 



According to the position that the cell occupies in the 

 body, part of this reflex arc is hypertrophied and part de- 



