226 ■ THEORETICAL BIOLOGY 



and makes the individual subjects become an enduring por- 

 tion of a dominating whole. 



In the amoebae even the ultimate offspring remain free, 

 if by the word " free " we mean that they are not incor- 

 porated into a framework. 



Now we are faced with the following remarkable fact. 

 The egg-cell is a subject ; every one of its offspring remains 

 a subject ; and the perfect animal is also a subject. If we 

 regard the possession of an autonomous rule of function as 

 characteristic of the subject, the process, up to this point, 

 appears quite free from objection. Now let us consider the 

 first divisions more closely. From the egg-subject there 

 emerge two subjects, namely the first blastomeres. These 

 can be separated experimentally : then again we have two 

 independent subjects. But the connection between the 

 two blastomeres, the self-constructing germ or embryo, is 

 not a subject, because it has no unified rule of function. 

 We have here another kind of unity, formed, not by a rule 

 of function, but by the rule of genesis alone. 

 4 From the first blastomeres until the completion of de- 



velopment, the embryo is a unity which arises from a subject, 

 it is true, is made up of subjects, and becomes a subject, but 

 itself is not a subject. 



THE BIOLOGICAL AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SUBJECTS 



The contradiction that seems to be involved in the defini- 

 tion of the subject indicates that we have not yet elaborated 

 the idea of the subject sufficiently. 



Psychology employs the concept subject for the " ego," and 

 V understands thereby the unity of the process of appercep- 

 tion ; at the same time it regards the ego as the source of the 

 ordered impulses. 



From the standpoint of biology, which considers the 



