566 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



systemic organisms and proportions for the time being, 

 and is capable of meeting the dynamic wants of one, 

 more, or all of these organic conditions, individually and 

 collectively, in every conceivable situation. 



While circulation characterises the manner of disposal 

 of matter within the living organism, so does it charac- 

 terise that of energy, both being amenable to the control 

 of the same laws, for the accomplishment of the same 

 purposes or for common ends. Thus the material and 

 dynamic activities of the cell constitute its raison d'etre, 

 whether it begins and ends as a uni-cellular organism, or, 

 by mitotic continuation, becomes the instrument, through 

 evolution, of founding a multi-cellular organism, while, in 

 turn, the multi-cellular organism, retaining its connection 

 with its uni-cellular parent, by cell processes through which 

 innervation of the common cell colony is maintained, 

 perpetuates, by continuity, the effective operation of the 

 same activities, material and dynamic. 



Circulation, thus far in the organic scale, is merely intra- 

 cellular and inter-cellular, and, therefore, is determined 

 and operated by the inherent nervine energy of cell and 

 cell group on principles emanating from uni-cell and 

 multi-cell sources, and, therefore, devoid of any central 

 nervine control, productive or distributive ; it is, how- 

 ever, the circulation on which the organic life of man is 

 dependent, and by which he is able to maintain the 

 working of that vast machinery amid which his central 

 nervous system has ultimately to be placed for the 

 accomplishment of his highest terrestrial destiny. 



Circulation and innervation, being alike the possession 

 of cell and multi-cell organisms, it becomes apparent that 

 metabolism and nutrition, the processes by which life is 

 maintained, must be directly related to them in the way 

 of cause and effect ; if so, we must therefore be prepared 

 to find that the channels of least resistance^ along which the 

 circulation of the two entities matter and energy must 

 and can only be those channels; it, therefore, further 

 follows that the material circulated can, and must, only be 

 the plasma or pabulum from which the nutritional 

 elements are supplied, and that its vital distribution and 

 organic disposal is the principal function of innervation 



