And when the cells are incorporated in the body of one of the higher
animals, instead of each preserving a free and nomad existence; when
they become the multitudinous constituents of an organic republic with
unity of plan and unity of biological end, then the behaviour of each
is limited in range but perfected within that range, in subservience to
the requirements of the more complex unity. The muscle cell contracts,
the gland-cell secretes, the rods and cones of the retina respond to
the waves of light, and all the normal responses of the special cells
go on with such orderly regularity that the term behaviour seems
scarcely applicable to reactions so stereotyped. But the physiologist
and the physician know well that such uniformity of response is
dependent on uniformity of conditions. A little dose of some drug
will profoundly modify and render abnormal the procedure which was
before so mechanical in its exactitude; and we are thus led to see how
dependent the orderly behaviour really is on the maintenance of certain
surrounding conditions.
Moreover, the existence of every cell in the body corporate is the
outcome of a process of division involving a special mode of behaviour
in the nucleus, of which we are only beginning to guess the meaning
and significance, and of which we seek in vain to find an explanation
in mechanical terms. And when we trace these divisions back to their
primary source in the fertilized ovum, we find changes and evolutions
in the nuclear matter of which it can only be said that the more they
are studied the more complex and varied do they appear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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