The Biological Problem of To-day: Preformation Or Epigenesis?: The Basis of a Theory of Organic DevelopmentHertwig, Oscar
Science
The Biological Problem of To-day: Preformation Or Epigenesis?: The Basis of a Theory of Organic Development
Hertwig, Oscar
Developmental biology; Embryology; Genetics
Now, is there any part of these processes that has to do with the breaking
of the nuclear contents into groups of determinants with different
qualities? By no means. The egg divides into many pieces, because such
division is a general property of cells, and it is not associated with
separate, special material bearers. The appearance of spaces between the
cells, resulting from division, is due to forces some of which reside
within the single cells, some of which come from without. In especial, the
assumption of a spherical shape--an assumption occurring also to a greater
or less degree when the results of division leave each other--is caused by
the yolk actively arranging itself round the two nuclei as centres of
attraction. The attempt to become spherical is opposed by other forces, in
accordance with which the cells resulting from division press against each
other. These forces that press the cells together seem to increase, as the
size of the cells diminishes, so that the cells approximate their lateral
faces continually more closely. The secretion of fluid into the interior of
the sphere and the resulting increase of the outer surface results from the
characters of the whole wall, and cannot be explained by single, specially
determined cells.
Finally, to take the case of the special kinds of blastospheres (_e.g._, of
amphioxus, amphibia, reptiles, birds, and so forth), it has been already
shown that these are produced by the shape of the egg, by the bulk of the
yolk, and by the segregation of the yolk-particles under the influence of
gravity; that, in fact, the shapes are determined by the general gross
conditions of the structure of the egg.
Plainly, the blastosphere cannot be pre-existing as a structure of
particles in the fertilised nucleus; there cannot be blastosphere
determinants. The conditions for the origin of the blastosphere come into
existence only by the process of segmentation, and it is only by its
capacity to divide that the egg contains the conditions for blastosphere
formation. Here we have epigenesis--the appearance of a new formation, not
the becoming visible of pre-existing complexity.
The conditions of gastrulation and of the formation of the germinal layers
are similar. The invagination of the blastosphere comes about by the
co-operation of all the cells of its wall, by local differences in the
rates of growth in that wall, from dissimilarities in its curvature, from
many causes which have not yet been sufficiently sought out and
investigated. As cell division itself depends not upon special particles,
but upon changes in the entire nuclear contents, it follows that the growth
of the blastosphere-wall, which is merely the sum of the growth of all the
cells in it, cannot be determined by special groups of determinants.
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