Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 1 of 3: Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions.Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy
Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 1 of 3: Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions.
Spencer, Herbert
Philosophy; Political science; Science
After this primary modification, by which the outer tissues are
differentiated from the inner, the next in order of constancy and
importance is that by which some part of the outer tissues is
differentiated from the rest; and this corresponds with the almost
universal fact that some part of the outer tissues is more directly
exposed to certain environing influences than the rest. Here, as before,
the apparent exceptions are extremely significant. Some of the lowest
vegetable organisms, as the _Hematococci_ and _Protococci_, evenly
imbedded in a mass of mucus, or dispersed through the Arctic snow,
display no differentiations of surface: the several parts of the surface
being subjected to no definite contrasts of conditions. The
_Thalassicolla_ above mentioned, unfixed, and rolled about by the waves,
presents all its sides successively to the same agencies; and all its
sides are alike. A ciliated sphere like the _Volvox_ has no parts of its
periphery unlike other parts; and it is not to be expected that it
should have; seeing that as it revolves in all directions, it does not,
in traversing the water, permanently expose any part to special
conditions. But when we come to creatures that are either fixed, or
while moving, severally preserve a definite attitude, we no longer find
uniformity of surface. The gemmule of a Zoophyte, which during its
locomotive stage is distinguishable only into outer and inner tissues,
no sooner takes root than its upper end begins to assume a different
structure from its lower. The free-swimming embryo of an aquatic
annelid, being ovate and not ciliated all over, moves with one end
foremost; and its differentiations proceed in conformity with this
contrast of circumstances.
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