438 PHYSIOLOGICAL REGULATIOlSrS 



of constitution and function, or (b) the provision of the states and 

 properties (regularities) that characterize the hving individual, or 

 both. In other words, physiological regulations are an outcome of 

 the combinations of properties possessed by the living unit in its 

 environment, and seem to be such as to maintain and restore states 

 of balance as I defined them. The definitions and statements 

 quoted are, it appears to me, inexact notions concerning those fixi- 

 ties in the midst of flux which the variabilities of components and 

 the equilibration diagrams more specifically and exactly describe. 

 It seems clear that the very relations included in these particular 

 abstractions have been quantitatively represented in this investiga- 

 tion. So long as their recognition depends only upon their mani- 

 festations (loads, rates, and reactions), there is nothing indefinable 

 or incomprehensible about regulations. 



The ivord regulation has been current in physiology at least 

 since 1870, with a meaning not very different from that expressed 

 here. Often it was used in connection with the striking constancy 

 of body temperature. In a separate field of biology it was used to 

 characterize the adjustments of body form during regeneration of 

 tissues. The broad implications of the word were set forth by 

 Driesch ('01), who actually classified organic regulations, though 

 in ways that now seem useless. 



Like other students of biology, I was repeatedly told that regu- 

 lations were important. What they were and how they operated 

 was far from apparent. Gradually they acquired meaning, not as 

 inferences from metaphysics, but as hazy inductions from biologi- 

 cal experience. More recently I observed data concerning bal- 

 ances, variabilities, recoveries, and behaviors that manifest a com- 

 mon bearing upon the maintenance of properties. Bit by bit I have 

 come to realize that this pattern of maintenance is probably what 

 my preceptors were talking about. But, as a result of my back- 

 wardness I have an unforeseen advantage over them, for I build 

 my abstractions about equilibration diagrams and frequency dia- 

 grams, while they used words. My concept is in quantitative and 

 dimensional form, theirs was, I infer, less definitely founded. 



According to my notion, a physiological regulation is not the 

 intangible director of what goes on in an organism, but is the spe- 

 cific pattern of certain correlations (coordinations) operative dur- 

 ing life. A regulation is the constellation of activities whereby 

 some property or component of the organism is self -maintained. 



