CHAPTER II 

 ONTOGENY 



1. The Principle of Individual Development 



The development of a single cell into a complex, highly differ- 

 entiated organism is one of nature's most marvelous pageants, a series 

 of events that occurs in such an orderly fashion as to fill the observer 

 with awe, and yet the writer believes that this marvelous event con- 

 sists of nature's tricks only based upon the reversible nature of pro- 

 tein above mentioned. 



According to his concept, there is a mutually reversible relation 

 between the protoplasm structure of germ cells and that of somatic, 

 and somatic cells are converted to germinal cells under a series of 

 proper stimuli under which the structure of the latter is stable. The 

 ontogeny or the individual development is considered to be no more 

 than the return of the germinal cell to the original, differentiated 

 structure. Since the germinal cell can function independently of the 

 somatic as a unicellular organism, its protoplasm must have the primi- 

 tive structure of unicellular stage of the organism from which it has 

 evolved, and the structure must have attained by the reversibility. 



The spores of unicellular organisms may be analogous to the ger- 

 minal cells of multicellular organisms and may be produced when 

 unicellular organisms, such as some bacteria or protozoa, are reduced 

 in their protoplasm structure to more primitive structure under a 

 change of environmental conditions. A new environment under which 

 the primitive structure is brought about must favour the reduction of 

 the structure ; as a result of the reduction the cells may be decomposed 

 into virus-like particles, the more primitive forms of the organisms, 

 thus producing spores, which, however, can return to the original 

 structure under certain other environmental conditions, with the re- 

 covery of the form of unicellular organisms. As the protoplasm is 

 looked upon as a kind of liquid crystals of proteins, the shape of the 

 protoplasm should be determined by the structure of the protein. 

 Therefore, the return of the structure to the original should be fol- 

 lowed by the recovery of the shape. 



As stated in the previous chapter, organisms are bound to grow 

 old when they stand always under the same environment, but they 



