206 INDIVIDUALITY IN ORGANISMS 



of definiteness and the constancy of character of .the 

 developmental processes and other activities of living 

 things. It also has a certain bearing upon the problem 

 of the origin of individuations whose component parts 

 are human beings or groups of human beings. Between 

 the organic individual and the state there is, from this 

 point of view, a real analogy, for control or government 

 is the essential feature in the individuation in both, and 

 the relations are in certain respects similar in both 

 cases. It is not a mere fanciful analogy to conceive 

 the organism as a state or the state as an organism, 

 since both are dynamic individuals and some degree 

 of dominance or government exists in both. These 

 suggestions are an indication of some of the broader 

 bearings of the dynamic conception of the organic 

 individual, but discussion along these lines must be 

 postponed. 



In conclusion it is perhaps permissible to call atten- 

 tion to the simplification and unification of viewpoint 

 which this conception accomplishes. The separation of 

 morphological from physiological investigation and 

 thought, particularly in zoology, which followed the 

 acceptance of the theory of evolution, and the fact that 

 the morphologists, rather than the physiologists or 

 biochemists, have chiefly concerned themselves with the 

 great problems of heredity, development, and evolution, 

 have brought it about that biological theory in these 

 fields has been to some extent a world apart. While 

 proclaiming their acceptance of the mechanistic or 

 physico-chemical conception of life, the theorists of this 

 group and their followers have not only made but few 

 attempts to apply physico-chemical conceptions to 



