196 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LIFE 



In current language these symbolic formulae signify that 

 the being, considered at a given moment of its existence, 

 comes from what it was at a previous moment and from all 

 it has done in the interval. 



The term education in a wide sense we apply to the series 

 B t , B 2 , B 3 . . . B w , representing the sums total of circum- 

 stances traversed by the living being from the point of its 

 existence as A t on to A M . 



Taking into account the previous definitions, we can 

 give a new expression to our symbolic formulae. The 

 structure A w of a living being at a given moment of its 

 existence or, what comes to the same thing, its heredity 

 at this given moment is integrally determined when we 

 know one of its previous heredities A t and the education 

 (B 1? B 2 , B 3 . . . B n ,) which separates the state A! from 

 the state A H . 



We are accustomed to take as a starting point the initial 

 heredity the heredity of the egg and to begin with the 

 egg the series of terms B which constitute the education. 

 In this case we say more briefly : 



Every living being is a product of its heredity and its 

 education. 



This very simple formula has the great advantage 

 of recalling at every moment that the life of a being 

 does not dwell in the being itself, but is always the result 

 of the struggle between two factors the animal's body 

 (heredity) and the sum total of surrounding circumstances 

 (education). 



Assimilation and Morpho-Genesis 



Individual evolution as we have outlined its details may 

 thus be considered from two points of view that of chemi- 

 cal assimilation or fabrication of substances like those of 



