COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



the outer, — yet so little specialized that, if 

 turned inside out, the digestive surface will be- 

 gin to respire, and the respirative surface to 

 digest, as imperturbably as if nothing had hap- 

 pened. In short, in a survey of the whole 

 organic world, progress from lower to higher 

 forms is a progress from forms which are less, 

 to forms which are more, differentiated and in- 

 tegrated. 



One further point must be noticed before we 

 conclude this preliminary sketch of the process 

 of evolution. The illustrations above given 

 refer almost exclusively to differentiations and 

 integrations of structure, or, in other words, to 

 rearrangements of the matter of which organic 

 bodies are composed. It remains to be shown 

 how the rearrangements of the motion retained 

 by developing organisms exhibit the same char- 

 acteristics, and manifest themselves as differ- 

 entiations and integrations of function. All or- 

 ganic functions are either molar motions of con- 

 tractile muscles, or of circulatory fluids, or else 

 they are molecular motions in nerves, or in 

 secreting organs, or in assimilative tissues in 

 general. To show how these various motions 

 become more specialized and more consolidated 

 as the organism is developed, let us briefly re- 

 consider the case of the alimentary canal, whose 

 structural modifications were lately described. 

 The primitive alimentary canal exhibits from 

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