CHAPTER II 

 THEORIES OF ORGANIC INDIVIDUALITY 



Having formulated the problem, it is necessary to 

 in.quire what progress has already been made toward its 

 solution. The first section of this chapter is a very 

 summary consideration of this question. Since the 

 experimental and observational data upon which my 

 own conclusions are based are so varied and their rela- 

 tions to the problem in many cases so complex, the 

 inductive method of procedure is impossible within the 

 limits of the present book. It has seemed necessary, 

 therefore, to state my conclusions briefly in categorical 

 form as a working hypothesis before attempting to review 

 and interpret the various lines of evidence. This I 

 have attempted to do in the second section of the chapter. 



THEORETICAL REVIEW AND CRITIQUE 



The organic individual has very often been compared 

 to a human society or state with orderly division of 

 labor and correlation among its component parts. 

 The fundamental feature of the human state, that 

 which distinguishes it from a mere aggregation of 

 human beings and makes it an individual, is some kind 

 and degree of law and order, of co-ordination and control 

 of the activities of its constituent units; in short, some 

 degree and kind of government. If the organism is a 

 cell-state or organ-state some degree and kind of govern- 

 ment must exist in it, but in making such comparisons 

 biologists have often ignored or failed to recognize 



2J 



