CHAPTER IIL 



FUNCTION. 



§ 55. Does Structure originate Function, or does Func- 

 tion originate Structure ? is a question about which there has 

 been disagreement. Using the word Function in its widest 

 signification, as the totality of all vital actions, the question 

 amounts to this — does Life produce Organization, or does 

 Organization produce Life ? 



To answer this question is not easy, since we habitually 

 find the two so associated that neither seems possible without 

 the other ; and they appear uniformly to increase and 

 decrease together. If it be said that the arrangement of or- 

 ganic substances in particular forms, cannot be the ultimate 

 cause of vital changes, which must depend on the properties 

 of such substances; it may be replied that, in the absence of 

 structural arrangements, the forces evolved cannot be so 

 directed and combined as to secure that correspondence 

 between inner and outer actions which constitutes Life. 

 Again, to the allegation that the vital activity of every germ 

 whence an organism arises, is obviously antecedent to the 

 development of its structures ; there is the answer that such 

 germ is not absolutely structureless, but consists of a mass of 

 cells, containing a cell that difiers from the rest, and initiates 

 the developmental changes. There is, however, one 



fact implying that Function must be regarded as taking pre- 

 cedence of Structure. Of the lowest Rhizopods, which pre- 

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