THE SPECIES 255 



So every individual being, when it is completed, is a 

 product of three rules — the rule of the species, the rule of y 

 the community and the individual's rule of function. All 

 three rules, therefore, must together have been determining 

 the rule of genesis, which imposes their arrangement on the 

 impulses. 



Reference of the phenotype of the individual organism to 

 its genotype permits us to separate off the rule of the species, 

 and reduce the species to a rule of mixing of the genes — a 

 rule which I put into concrete form in the image of the 

 columnar network. This rule of mixing, which supposedly 

 forms the family, produces individuals exploiting all the given 

 possibilities according to the number and quality of the 

 properties present, and creates a wide-embracing surrounding- 

 world, within which the species as a whole continues to live 

 and move. 



The picture of the species as phenotype, such as I gave it 

 in the case of the cabbage-white, may be pictured as stationary 

 or in action, according to whether we project it in space only, 

 or in space and time. One thing remains characteristic of 

 this picture throughout, and it is that while the individual 

 organisms considered show a collective organisation, they are 

 not connected together by a function. 



By their individual actions the individuals do not partici- 

 pate in the collective action of the species in such a way that 

 one part-action conditions the other in space and time ; but 

 the sum of all the part-actions of the individuals forms in 

 each association the collective action of the species. 



As soon as the organism is completely developed, the pheno- 

 type of which was determined through the genotype given by 

 the rule of the species, the influence of that rule ceases, and 

 the collective action of all the individuals forms that of the 

 species, without further functional binding together of their 

 actions as individuals. 



