Vilalifij and Organizalioii of Protoplasm. 43 



inimediato interaction with the dynamically stimulating influences of 

 the iiiedium. 



The protoplasmic individual becomes thus a being with a two-fold, 

 almost bipolar relation to the medium. At its outer surface it carries 

 on Avhat may be called the dynamical interaction with its environment, 

 suffering thereby disintegration. In its interior it carries on the diges- 

 tion of nutritive material furnished by the medium, whereby reintegra- 

 tion is effected. This evident subserviency of the internal digesting sub- 

 stance to the externally active substance of living beings is pregnant 

 with important dev(>lopmental consequences. For it is extremely prob- 

 able that the incessantly maintained interaction of the chemically cumu- 

 lating substance of the organism with the divers and definitely stimu- 

 lating influences of the medium ; that this ceaseless reciprocal play leads 

 to the gradual functional attunement of diverse parts of its surface to the 

 diverse modes of stimulation, and therewith to structural elaboration 

 and structural differentiation. This adaptive process would then neces- 

 sarily involve corresponding adaptation of the entire individual, con- 

 sisting, as it docs throughout of a chemically integral substance. 



We actually find the different surface structures of organisms respec- 

 tively attuned in their functional activities to different corresponding 

 modes of external stimulation. Such specific attunement must have 

 been somehow brought about during phyletic evolution. And, surely, 

 it is more likely that it has been wrought by constant interaction of the 

 living substance with the externally stimulating influences, in which 

 its most essential and culminating vital function actually consists; more 

 likely to have been wrought in this way, than by accidentally useful 

 nutritrive variations of composition having been offered for random 

 selection to haphazard contingencies arising during the struggle for 

 existence; whatever helpful adaptive assistance this may have rendered. 



Results of botanical investigation point to this formative and develop- 

 m':ntal dependence of the living substance on its interaction with the 

 sundry influences of the environment. The plant stands in more imme- 

 diate dependence on its medium than the animal. For its sundry organs 

 evolve to a considerable extent in dependence on the same stimuli, with 

 which they will eventually remain in functional interaction. 



Considering that the functional activity of the entire organism takes 

 altogether place in more or less direct interaction with outside agencies, 

 and in more or less important relations to the same ; considering, further- 

 more, that the interaction of their surface structures or ectodermic 

 organs with the sundry stimulating influences of the medium consti- 

 tutes their culminating activity, to which all other functions are sub- 

 servient; considering all this, it lies near to conclude that in this very 

 activity is to be found the fundamental and most essential formative 

 and developmental process. Nutrition having proved to be essentially 

 complemental restitution of a preformed, most specific constitution of 

 the living substance, it can not possibly take a leading part in organic 

 evolution, as is generallv believed. 



