100 THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 



the various parts of the cell leads to the conclusion 

 that all cell organs, whether temporary or permanent, 

 are local differentiations of a common structural 

 basis/ 1 



Furthermore, the acceptance of submicroscopic 

 structures, for instance, in the sense of a connected 

 filamentary structure as a mechanical basis of the 

 vital processes, is of no assistance, since there cannot 

 obviously be attributed to such hypothetical structures 

 any such qualities, as for instance, of rigid ' mechanism ' 

 structure, from which the actually observed new 

 formation and transformation of the so-called cell 

 organs (centrioli, nucleus, filamentary structures in the 

 protoplasm) could not result. The cell clearly disposes 

 quite freely of its material, it builds from its common 

 basis the centrioli, always completes its nuclear 

 substance, forms new nucleoli and dissolves all this 

 again according to whether it requires one of these 

 organs precisely for a particular office or not. 



Conclusion. There is in the cell no rigid mechanical 

 structure either in the protoplasm (cytoplasm) or in 

 the nucleus. The ' organization ' is in fact only the 

 purposeful co-operation of all constituents of the cell 

 contents (regarded as elementary organism) or the 

 displayed subordination of all parts in the service of 

 the whole shown in the activity of the cell ; ' organiza- 

 tion ' is thus in the meantime a purely biological term, 

 i.e. it expresses only a peculiarity of the activity of 



1 E. B. Wilson : The Cell, p. 327. 



