The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
The independent vitality shown by separated portions of ventral skin from
frog-larvæ may be named as the first illustration. With their attached
yolk-cells these lived for days, and underwent such transformations as
proved some structural proclivity, though of course the product was
amorphous. Detached portions of tails of larvæ went on developing their
component parts in much the same ways as they would have done if remaining
attached. More striking still was the evidence furnished by experiments in
grafting. These proved that the undifferentiated rudiment of an organ will,
when cut off and joined to a non-homologous place in another individual,
develop itself as it would have done if left in its original place. In
brief, then, we may say that each part is in chief measure autogenous.
These strange facts presented by small aggregates of organic matter, which
are the seats of extremely complex forces, will seem less incomprehensible
if we observe what has taken place in a vast aggregate of inorganic matter
which is the seat of very simple forces--the Solar System. Transcendently
different as this is in all other respects, it is analogous in the respect
that, as factors of local structures, local influences predominate over the
influences of the aggregate. For while the members of the Solar System,
considered as a whole, are subordinate to the totality of its forces, the
arrangements in each part of it are produced almost wholly by the play of
forces in that part. Though the Sun affects the motions of the Moon, and
though during the evolution of the Earth-and-Moon system the Sun exercised
an influence, yet the relations of our world and its satellite in respect
of masses and motions were in the main locally determined. Still more
clearly was it thus with Jupiter and his satellites or Saturn with his
rings and satellites. Remembering that the ultimate units of matter of
which the Solar System is composed are of the same kinds, and that they act
on one another in conformity with the same laws, we see that, remote as the
case is from the one we are considering in all other respects, it is
similar in the respect that during organization the energies in each
locality work effects which are almost independent of the effects worked by
the general energies. In this vast aggregate, as in the minute aggregates
now in question, the parts are practically autogenous.
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