THE BREATH OF LIFE 



of a "specific something" that organizes, that is, of 

 "dominating organic agencies," be they psychic or 

 super-mundane, which dominate and determine the 

 organization of the different parts of the body into a 

 whole. Yet he is troubled with the idea that this 

 specific something may be "nothing more than ac- 

 cidental chemical peculiarities of cells." But would 

 these accidental peculiarities be constant? Do ac- 

 cidents happen millions of times in the same way? 

 The cell is without variableness or shadow of turn- 

 ing. The cells are the minute people that build up 

 all living forms, and what prompts them to build 

 a man in the one case, and the man's dog in another, 

 is the mystery that puzzles Professor Rand. "Tissue 

 cells," he says, "are not structures like stone blocks 

 laboriously carved and immovably cemented in 

 place. They are rather like the local eddies in an 

 ever-flowing and ever-changing stream of fluids. 

 Substance which was at one moment a part of a cell, 

 passes out and a new substance enters. What is it 

 that prevents the local whirl in this unstable stream 

 from changing its form? How is it that a million 

 muscle cells remain alike, collectively ready to re- 

 spond to a nerve impulse?" According to one view, 

 expressed by Professor Rand, "Organization is 

 something that we read into natural phenomena. 

 It is in itself nothing." The alternative view holds 

 that there is a specific organizing agent that brings 

 about the harmonious operation of all the organs 



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