806 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 937 



form and position appropriate to its par- 

 ticipation in the tissue complex of an 

 organ? What determines those mutual 

 relations whereby diverse organs operate 

 harmoniously together in the service of the 

 whole ? 



Our conception of the organization of 

 living things must remain imperfect and 

 incomplete until such questions as these 

 are answered. When they have been an- 

 swered we may, in the light of our in- 

 creased knowledge, amplify and perfect 

 our definition of the word, organization. 

 Or, if we prefer, the word may be retained 

 in its present significance as applied to 

 plants and animals, indicating those rela- 

 tions which even now we clearly enough 

 perceive to exist, and we may use some 

 other designation for whatever shall have 

 been found to underlie these relations. I 

 am using the word to designate those con- 

 spicuous peculiarities which have led us to 

 call living things organisms. Our problem 

 is to discover upon what this organization 

 rests. 



HYPOTHESES 



The inquiry as to the nature and under- 

 lying basis of the relations which consti- 

 tute organization meets two alternative 

 answers. According to the one we may 

 regard the constituent elements of any or- 

 ganic system — be it cell, tissue, organ, or 

 the whole individual — as causally independ- 

 ent of one another so far as their condi- 

 tion of being organized into a system is 

 concerned, and we may suppose further 

 that no dynamic agent specifically respon- 

 sible for their organization into a system 

 exists. The fact that the constituent ele- 

 ments of the system do depend upon one 

 another in a variety of ways and that they 

 do stand in diverse definite relations to 

 one another constitutes their organization. 

 But the cause of the organization of the 



system does not necessarily lie within the 

 various interrelations of the several mem- 

 bers of the system, nor in any effects de- 

 rived from other organic systems. Each 

 element possesses a certain constitution. 

 It exists in a certain physical, that is, non- 

 physiological, environment. (The physical 

 peculiarities of this environment may, how- 

 ever, be to a great extent dependent upon 

 the physiological operation of other organic 

 elements and systems.) It executes activi- 

 ties which are direct functions of its con- 

 stitution and environment. If these activi- 

 ties take place in such a way as to produce 

 harmonious action of the several members 

 of a group, thus constituting them into a 

 system, such harmony is to be regarded as 

 merely the incidental result of the circum- 

 stance that the members are so constituted 

 and so environed. The member is in no 

 way responsible for the fact that its be- 

 havior is subserving the needs of the entire 

 organism, and no more is the organism as 

 a whole responsible for the behavior of its 

 elements. 



Viewed in this way, the organization of 

 any system results essentially from pecul- 

 iarities in the constitution of the members 

 of that system, the members being not only 

 independent of one another as regards the 

 fact of their being organized, but likewise 

 independent of any immediately present 

 coordinating agent. Organization, then, is 

 merely something that we read into nat- 

 ural phenomena. It is in itself nothing. 

 Going to the logical conclusions of the mat- 

 ter, it is a name for certain inevitable and 

 purely accidental consequences of the cir- 

 cumstance that atoms or other primordial 

 physical entities possess certain inflexible 

 habits of movement. If we are perplexed 

 by the fact that the total effect of the 

 operation of a subordinate system appears 

 as a more or less important function in the 



