SIZE AND NUMBER AS RELATED TO ORGANISMS 385 



cuticle become incompatible in this range of sizes. The competition 

 of such imaginary small vertebrates with other organisms, say insects, 

 of simpler structure better adapted to such small sizes would be a 

 hopeless struggle. 



Why not insects as large as moles or as small as microbes? Here 

 again the mechanical relations of the organism to the menstrua 

 furnish numerous reasons for the known size limits. 



Generalizing, why not multicellular organisms beyond certain 

 maximum and minimum limits? A little thought shows that limits 

 are set by the relationships of particular mechanisms to the sizes and 

 distances involved; and as size, in such cases, is a function of the 

 number of cooperating cells, the limits are set in numerical terms. 

 This becomes clearer when we consider our ability to represent a 

 cellular organism by a strictly numerical expression, the bioequation, 2 

 and all the more certainly true when, continuing the same line of 

 thought, we consider the size limits of cells. 



Why do we not have cells a meter long; and why not typical cells 

 below the limits of a micron or two? Again, among other reasons, 

 in this range of still smaller sizes the mechanism of the typical cell 

 becomes so complex as to "be in its own way" when the distances 

 involved become sufficiently small and the number of properties to be 

 transmitted sufficiently few, as will be indicated in a moment. 



Size limits in these various cases are set by a fundamental neces- 

 sity, having its "final" source in the size of the electronic combinations. 



Particular attention is called to the fact that, usually, the size 

 limits of "adjacent" higher and lower groups of organisms reciprocally 

 overlap (e.g. Vertebrates and Insects); as well as to the fact that 

 individuals of certain species of unicellular organisms are larger 

 than some of the multicellulars; or, to emphasize by reversing, many 

 multicellulars are smaller than some of the larger unicellulars. There 

 is a distinct lapping of the size limits of one on to the size limits of 

 the other. 



Organisms of greater size; "social organisms." Developing a more 

 complex nervous system, the higher organisms have evolved "mental 

 pictures" of distant and invisible things and events, and have in- 

 vented means for transmitting through various media signs that 

 represent these mental pictures. Along this path the social organisms 

 evolved. When we speak of a social organism it is usually assumed 



"Biological Relationships of the Mathematical Series 1, 2, 4, etc." Contributions 

 to a Science of Nematology XV. 



