1 88 2 ] Organic Physics. 5 5 3 



from specialized relations with the environment By a continu- 

 ance of this process all functional differentiation is produced. 

 Thus organic development is primarily chemical specialization. 



One necessary result springs from this form of differentiation. 

 Unspecialized cells may exist independently. All specialized cells 

 must be coherent. They owe their existence to conditions pro- 

 duced by the action of other cells, and therefore can only exist in 

 intimate connection with those cells. Thus chemical specializa- 

 tion is necessarily followed by cellular coherence, and the produc- 

 tion of many-celled organisms. It is the basic cause of all life 

 evolution beyond the Protozoan. 



The considerations here taken render necessary certain under- 

 lying laws of organic evolution. Variation in the environment 

 necessitates chemical specialization, followed by coherence of 

 cells and functional differentiation. But a yet' more primary 

 principle lies at the basis of evolution. If the simplest life form 

 depends for its vital energy upon chemical polarity, then an 

 essential step to evolution must be some means of increasing the 

 vigor of this polarity. Organic forms may have begun in colloid 

 units with very feeble polar differentiation. If so, the first step 

 m the evolution process must have been an increase of this differ- 

 entiation, so as to increase the growth vigor and the power of 

 germinal reproduction, or cell division. The tendency of such 

 units is to neutralization, through chemical satisfaction. Oxida- 

 tion overcomes this tendency by reproducing the original polarity. 

 May not oxidation do more than this, and in some cases yield an 

 increased polarity? If so, organic evolution resolves itself into 



•s. Primarily the life energy of organisms grows greater and 

 greater, as continued oxidation yields a slowly increasing vigor 

 o chemical polarity. Secondarily the life energy becomes more 

 Averse as successively new relations with the environment arise, 

 and new chemical specializations in consequence. As oxidation 

 Produces the one, activity aids the other, the active organism 

 varying its relations much more rapidly than the passive one. 



If such be the chemical character of the mature organism, 

 hat is most probably the chemical character of the germ from 

 w nich it arises ? If in the process of growth only chemical 

 ^encies are active, and only chemical results produced; if chem- 

 affinity is alone concerned in the two processes of physical 

 gr ° Wth and organic differentiation, then the germ can need none 



