210 The Unity of the Organism 



which it pertains? A critical examination of both the orig- 

 inal theory and the modifications of it, in the light of the 

 questions just raised will, I believe, discover that the modi- 

 fications have in reality destroyed whatever of scientific 

 value the original theory may have had. There can be no ob- 

 jection to comparing a living being with a mosaic picture on 

 tlie basis of the fact that the former is composed of a great 

 number and variety of living particles called cells, just as 

 tlic mosaic picture is composed of a great number of par- 

 ticles of stone, but the comparison has at best but little 

 scientific value, and at worst may be very harmful. The 

 little scientific value in the comparison is purely subjective 

 and logical; it concerns the problem of the unity in spite 

 of the composite quality^ of both organism and picture as 

 objects of perception. 



The harmfulncss of which the comparison is capable lies 

 in the w^holly fallacious inferences that may be drawn as 

 to the mode of origin of the objects compared. The funda- 

 mental difference between them is that while all the myriad 

 cells of the organism arise by the repeated auto-division of 

 one cell, the fertilized ovum, the picture is composed of 

 pieces of stone cut one by one from rocks which had- noth- 

 ing to do with it, until the pieces were assembled and put in 

 order to produce it, by men, beings again originally quite in- 

 dependent of the picture. The undivided egg-cell would then 

 have to be compared to one such stone block, and a moun- 

 tain of trouble looms up. In the first place, we know for an 

 absolute certainty that there is no one block of the pic- 

 ture from which all the otliers are produced either by divi- 

 sion or in any other way ; and in the second place, while 

 any particular stone block of the picture is nearly or quite 

 homogeneous so far as the general design of the picture is 

 concerned, and represents only a small piece in the design, 

 the undivided egg-cell is itself the whole organism in one 

 stage of its growth, and contains within itself a considex'- 



