486 C. M. Child 



That this could fail to be evident to any reader of these papers 

 had not occurred to me until a recent paper by Prof. S. J. Holmes 

 (Holmes '07) came to my notice. This paper is a restatement of 

 the author's symbiotic theory of form-regulation and a reply to 

 certain criticisms of my own (Child '06a) of an earlier statement 

 of this theory (Holmes '04). Holmes maintains that my sugges- 

 tions concerning the nature of form-regulation do "not contain 

 any general principle of explanation for that functional substitu- 

 tion and equihbration upon which it is assumed that form-regu- 

 lation depends. But I suspect that when his theory comes to be 

 developed so as to supply this missing element it will involve the 

 assumption of some such symbiotic relation between the parts of 

 the organism as I have assumed " (p. 424). If I understand this 

 assertion, it involves a serious misapprehension of my position. I 

 have insisted again and again in my work on form-regulation in the 

 interrelations or correlations between parts — in fact, certain of my 

 papers have been concerned chiefly with showing that such rela- 

 tions existed. Moreover, it is in consequence of the existence of 

 such relations that I regard form-regulation as essentially a func- 

 tional process. Even in my earliest papers positive statements 

 on this point were made. Thus, for example, on p. 219 of No i 

 of my Studies on Regulation (Child '02) in a consideration of the 

 general body-form of Stenostoma I wrote: "Every organism is 

 what it is because of the relation of all its parts to each other and 

 to the rest of the world. If any of these relations are changed the 

 organism is changed." And again in No. IV of the Studies 

 (Child '04a) in a discussion of "formative factors:" "All the com- 

 plex activities of which organisms are capable are 'formative 

 factors:' when we can view all of these in their complex inter- 

 relations, then and then only shall we 'understand' organic form." 

 Also in No. V (Child '04b): "The factors of organic form include 

 all the activities of organic substance as well as the environmental 

 factors in varying degree. Indeed, in most cases, if not in all, we 

 may regard organic form as the visible effect upon the protoplasm 

 of functional factors in the widest sense" (pp. 468-469). In the 

 later papers these interrelations are still more strongly emphasized. 

 I have preferred not to designate them as symbiotic relations since 



