PATHOLOGICAJL STATES IX ZTOLmOX. 253 



immense functional and structural results: not on changes ^hich 

 can in any sense be called sfKDn tan ecus, by which we may suppose 

 is meant those no cause can be assigned to, but on variations, 

 which, though thev occurred ages ago. wei-e obviously due to the 

 very same causes that the pathologist can demonstrate to be 

 working at the present day. Only such organisms as respond by 

 'direct reactions in a manner that finally rums out to be useful, 

 or at the very least compatible with life and reproduction, are 

 able to survive. The whole of gi-owth and development thus 

 becomes largely a function of effective morphogenetic repair to 

 organic failure and disease. 



Though this is not the place to deal at length with the vexed 

 question of transmission of modifications, it may be remarked 

 that the foregoing arguments seem to imply that such alterations 

 as a matter of fact are inherited. I think some progi-ess can be 

 made if we simply assume pi-ovisionally that organisms do tend 

 to repeat themselves and that it is unlOceness rather than likeness 

 which requii'e? explanation. TVe know that gross unlikeness is 

 almost always due to a lack or excess of some internal secretion, 

 hormone, or enzvme. and fi'om this it may be infeiTed that 

 likeness is due to such catalytic machinery coming over in the 

 zygote, and to each differentiation producing anew its own 

 peculiar products which stimulate or inhibit further git)wth and 

 differentiation. Some time ago I was sti-uck by a remai-k of 

 Starling's that each new oi'ganism seemed a fi-esh •• creation." 

 He gave this up on account of the difficulty he found in the 

 '• time element " of the problem, but I ventiu-e to think he was 

 right in his surmise. There is a growing body of opinion in 

 support of this view, as the names of Cunningham. McBride, 

 Dendv, and BoiuTie seem to bear witness. Ve must certainly 

 take into account these regulators of metabolism, and if we 

 accept the view that hypo-thvroidism determines ci-etinism. or, 

 in the adult, mvxcedema : that hyper- thyroidism is the' direct 

 cause of the phenomena seen in Gi-aves' disease, just as h\'per- 

 or hypo-pituitarism causes giantism or infantilism in children 

 ■while a later oversrrowth of the gland causes aci~omegftly. I see 

 no difficulty in accepting the hypothesis that gix^wth is deter- 

 mined. ?. e. stimulated or finally inhibited, by non-living catalysts 

 or secretions not necessarily confined to the endocrine organs. 

 In this way a bridge may perhaps l;e btiilt between the oithodox 

 Weismannian and the Lamarckian. Growth and character are 

 caused by determinants, but these are not part of the cytopljism 

 itself, they are the machinery by and through which living 

 matter acts. The organism is not built up by special protoplasm 

 or by entelechies or by any mysterious elan crt'atif. It arises 

 from the definite influence of definite catalysts originating, in an 

 orderly sequence, as the organs become differentiated, while tie 

 individual is as a whole esposed in an infinite progression to 

 the internal and external stimuli of a like but slowly changing 



