LIFE AND MIND 



amoeba up to man. For chemistry to produce the 

 cell is apparently as impossible as for it to produce 

 a bird's egg, or a living flower, or the heart and 

 brain of man. The body is a communal state made 

 up of myriads of cells that all work together to build 

 up and keep going the human personality. There is 

 the same cooperation and division of labor that 

 takes place in the civic state, and in certain insect 

 communities. As in the social and political organ- 

 ism, thousands of the citizen cells die every day and 

 new cells of the same kind take their place. Or, it is 

 like an army in battle being constantly recruited — 

 as fast as a soldier falls another takes his place, till 

 the whole army is changed, and yet remains the 

 same. The waste is greatest at the surface of the 

 body through the skin, and through the stomach 

 and lungs. The worker cells, namely, the tissue 

 cells, like the worker bees in the hive, pass away the 

 most rapidly; then, according to Haeckel, there are 

 certain constants, certain cells that remain through- 

 out life. "There is always a solid groundwork of 

 conservative cells, the descendants of which secure 

 the further regeneration." The traditions of the 

 state are kept up by the citizen-cells that remain, 

 so that, though all is changed in time, the genius 

 of the state remains; the individuality of the man 

 is not lost. "The sense of personal identity is main- 

 tained across the flight of molecules," just as it is 

 maintained in the state or nation, by the units that 



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