10 Vitality and Organization of Protoplasm. 



the germ-cell to be composed of self-multiplying elementary units, the 

 real problem of ontogenetic evolution has been simply shifted wholly 

 unsolved from the visible germ-cell, as a whole, unto merely imagined 

 constituents of the same. For it is now the vital units that reproduc- 

 tively evolve, not the germ-cell itself. And these hypothetical, ultimate 

 units have not merely to reproduce themselves, but have, moreover, con- 

 jointly to reproduce the predetermined adult organism ; all this declared 

 to be happening without the least insight into hoAv it is really accom- 

 plished. 



And so we find ourselves again confronted by the double-sided riddle : 

 How a group of specific reproductive elements, representing potentially 

 the divers adult tissues, manage to originate and to become collected in 

 the germ-cell? And how these autonomous units are then empowered 

 conjointly to evolve the adult organism ? 



MOLECULAE THEORIES EXAMINED. 



Polarigenesis — Herh ert Spencer. * 



It is highly instructive and helpful to the view which will be here ad- 

 vocated, to examine some principal attempts at elucidation of the para- 

 mount vital and yet profoundly obscure problem of ontogenetic evolu- 

 tion ; obscure under the hypothetical assumption that the adult organism 

 consists really of a vast aggregate of autonomous elements. 



In recent times the first serious, though purely speculative, effort of 

 the kind, was published in 1866 by Herbert Spencer in his "Principles 

 of Biology," as part of his comprehensive scheme of cosmic evolution. 

 In this his ingenious hypothesis, besides trying to account for given 

 biological phenomena, he aims also to show that organic forms are 

 special products or outcomes of the general redistribution of matter and 

 motion, which atomic mechanics declares to be underlying the formation 

 of all visible things. 



To render this mechanical mode of organic construction plausible, 

 Spencer assumes the existence of highly complex organic molecules, 

 which, in order to distinguish them from the molecules of lifeless or- 

 ganic substances, such as albumin, fibrine, protein, etc., he calls "physi- 

 ological units." These physiological units serve him not only as build- 

 ing material, but they are also conceived as being the bearers of allvital 

 and organic efficiencies. Each species of organism is held to be com- 

 posed of a special kind of such units. And with the construction of the 

 specific organic form in view, each kind of physiological units is en- 

 dowed with appropriate "polarities." 



"Polarity" consists with Spencer in the tendency of each physiologi- 

 cal unit to aggregate with other such units into the form of the organ- 

 ism it helps to compose. Just as the atoms of a salt have the intrinsic 

 aptitude to crystalize in a specific form. This interpretation of organic 



*1880, "Mind," No. XIX, Herbert Spencer's, Darwin's and llaeckd's theories 

 were critisized from essentially the same standpoint. 



