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Friday, August 18, 1916 



CONTENTS 

 The Basis of Individuality in Organisms: 

 Professor 0. C. Glaser 219 



The Necessity for Biological Bases for Leg- 

 islation and Practise in the Fisheries In- 

 dustries : G. W. Field 224 



Grants for Scientific Research: Professor 

 Charles R. Cross 229 



Karl Schwarsschild : Dr. J. A. Parkhtjrst. 234 



Report on Infantile Paralysis 234 



Scientific Notes and News 235 



University a.nd Educational News 237 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 



Culture Media for Paramecia and Euglena: 

 Professor R. M. Strong. Severe Restric- 

 tions to Normal Geographic Cycle: Dp- 

 Charles Keyes. Ugo Schiff : Professor 

 J. Bishop Tingle 238 



ic Boolcs: — 

 Chamberlin on the Origin of the Earth: 

 Professor Joseph Barrell 239 



Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci- 

 ences: Professor Edwin Bidwell Wilson. 244 



Special Articles: — 



Soil Bacteria and Phosphates: Professor 

 Cyril G. Hopkins and Albert L. Whiting. 246 



The American Chemical Society: Charles L. 

 Parsons 249 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 review should be sent to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrison- 

 On-Hudson, N. Y. 



THE BASIS OF INDIVIDUALITY IN 

 ORGANISMS i 

 INTRODUCTORY 



To enter upon the "higher criticism" of 

 the concept individuality, is far beyond my 

 powers. Even the humble attempt to think 

 of it, in the organic realm, in what I con- 

 ceive to be the simplest terms, offers diffi- 

 culties most of which must be bequeathed 

 in their entirety to future generations. 

 Yet to point these out and to take a few 

 soundings, unsatisfactory though they be, 

 may not prove entirely futile even at this 

 time. 



For me, the basis of individuality in 

 organisms is the mechanism by which liv- 

 ing things, despite profound and constant 

 change, keep themselves capable of identifi- 

 cation. Some of the changes through which 

 organisms pass are so radical that by com- 

 mon consent we treat them separately 

 under the head of development, but since 

 there is no evidence that living things be- 

 come individuals at a particular point in 

 their history, we may expect to find any- 

 where in the life-cycle the mechanism upon 

 whose workings the possibility of identifica- 

 tion rests. For obvious reasons the ar- 

 rangements that make for constancy must 

 occur in their least complicated form in the 

 simplest of all the stages of development. 



Fortunately, since it forces us at once to 

 engage with fundamentals, the beginnings 

 of development offer no refuge from our 

 most insistent - problem. We habitually 

 identify a given organism at two more or 



i Bead at a joint symposium of the American So- 

 ciety of Zoologists and Section F of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, Co- 

 lumbus, Ohio, December 30, 1915. 



