vi] RELATION TO MATTER 149 



important to us in one way. We begin to realize 

 what an influence the correlation of parts can exert 

 how one part can affect others by its mere presence 

 or absence. In Stentor, each bit that if separated 

 from the rest would grow into a perfect little whole, 

 remains as a part as long as it is connected with the 

 other parts. If it forms a part, it is because of its 

 relation with other parts ; if it forms a whole, it is 

 because it is freed from that relation. Whatever it 

 does, in fact, is due to the tendency of any separate 

 mass of Stentor-protoplasm to form a whole Stentor. 



Exactly similar is the behaviour of the blastomeres 

 or separate cells of the segmenting egg (p. 69) only 

 here the subordination is in one way more startling, 

 for each of them is a single cell and represents 

 historically a whole individual. Similarly in all 

 animals where small fragments can reconstitute 

 miniature wholes, the fate of any particular cell in a 

 fragment is determined very largely by its position 

 in the fragment, and would be different if the fragment 

 were of a different size or shape. 



This " tendency towards wholeness " thus manifests 

 itself across cell-boundaries as easily as through the 

 more continuous substance of a single cell. More 

 than this, it often seems to disregard them altogether. 

 Many facts of embryology, as when form appears first 

 and cells only later, lead us inevitably to a standpoint 

 resembling that of Whitman (19), when he says of 



