136 THE BIOCOSMOS CELLULAR. 



-has at least as many living inhabitants as 

 the Earth, in his own body, or probably in 

 his brains. The cellular population we may 

 thus conceive in every man to be equal to the 

 human population of the globe (usually said 

 to be many times more). Therein he is the 

 epitome of all men, the cell makes him such 

 even in Nature. Moreover, the round of life 

 is always going on with these little creatures 



-millions of births and millions of funerals 

 from the daily pomp of your individual globe. 

 It is evident, however, that your organism 

 has its own collective life as distinct from 

 that of its cellular denizens of whom it is made 

 up. In other words, they are associated, and 

 are severally members of a greater whole to 

 whose end they contribute, and which looks 

 after them. They are not autonomous units 

 merely aggregated together, but are subordi- 

 nated to a center, indeed to many centers in 

 graduation reaching up to the highest. Now 

 this tendency of the cell towards association 

 may well be regarded as its pivotal fact. It 

 associates to form all the organs of the body 

 and then to form the latter 's entirety. "When 

 the cell becomes autonomous, or more espe- 

 cially when a community of them sets up for 

 itself as independent, disease has started, 

 and a cell-war opens between the rebels and 

 the faithful, which may end in dissolution 



