372 PHYSIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT. 



posit of bone. Hence we must conclude that in the units of 

 protoplasm which have not yet been organized into special 

 tissues, there resides the ability to take on one or other type 

 of histological structure according to circumstances; and, 

 further, that there resides in each of them the still more 

 marvellous ability to cooperate with kindred units dispersed 

 around in developing that arrangement of the parts required 

 to constitute a " false joint." So that while these units 

 have a general proclivity towards the structure of the 

 organism as a whole, they have also proclivities towards 

 structures proper to the local conditions into which they 

 fall. There is latent in each unit the constitution of the 

 entire organism and by implication the constitution of every 

 organ ; and each unit while cooperating with the aggregate is 

 ready to take part in that particular arrangement proper to 

 the position it has fallen into. If the reader will refer back 

 to 97 d, 97e, in which it is shown that each member of a 

 human society possesses a combination of potentialities like 

 these, he will be the better enabled to believe that this thing 

 may be so while he is unable to conceive how it is so. 



And here, indeed, let it be pointed out how completely 

 irrelevant is the test of conceivableness as applied to these 

 ultimate physiological actions. For as here, from the un- 

 united ends of the broken bone, there presently arises a rude 

 joint with fit membranes, ligaments, and even synovial fluid, 

 though we are absolutely unable to imagine the process by 

 which the adjacent tissues produce this structure; so there 

 may be from an organ enlarged by function, such reactive 

 effect upon the system at large as eventually to influence the 

 reproductive cells, though we may be absolutely unable to 

 imagine how this can be done.] 



