John Wesley Powell

“ By like habits of thought it is customary to consider the solar system, not as a body, but as an assemblage of orbs, for the science of astronomy has not yet successfully attacked the problem of the relation of the solar system to other stellar systems. ”

“ If we could study them as molecules they would present relations of structure; so we may conceive of such relations, though we cannot actually observe them; but we can observe the figures of the bodies. Stars are embodied into systems when they, in turn, become particles and have space relations to one another; this is structure from the standpoint of the system, but the systems as bodies have form as figure and structure. Here in the celestial realm is found a series or hierarchy of individuals and communities. ”

“ The structure of the formation is the arrangement of the rocks; the relations of the rocks to one another are relations of structure. We may consider rocks as bodies, and omitting ill-defined granulation and incomplete crystallization and also omitting for the present purposes the consideration of the substances of which the rocks are composed, we may consider rocks as bodies with particles of molecules; then the form of the rock is its structure of molecules; the relation of the molecules to one another in position is structure. ”

“ When a body is considered as an individual in shape and structure, form is presented; but when a body is considered as a community of particles, space is considered. Thus it is seen that what is called space in the relations of particles, is called structure in the relations of form. In this treatise the term space is never used to denote the void—the nothing—but is always used to denote something real; so that space relations are the reciprocals of structure relations.
When we consider stars as such they are bodies, the particles of which are molecules. ”

“ We consider bodies as particles when we consider their space relations, and we consider them as forms when we consider their corporeal relations as units. Habits of thought are formed in such a manner that some bodies are usually considered as particles, while other bodies are usually considered as bodies. ”

“ We do not aspire to a treatise on botany, but stop to consider only certain facts which are essential to this argument; a consideration of the higher plants will serve our purpose. Certain phytons are modified to become roots, which are the organs devoted to the absorption from the earth of the materials which are to be woven into the plant; other phytons become the stem for support; others the branches for expansion; others the leaves for respiration; others pistils and stamens for reproduction, while others become floral envelopes for their protection. ”

“ Many extended particles incorporated in many bodies have relations of position, space, form, metamorphosis and organization, all of which are included under the term morphology. These relations cannot exist by themselves, but can only be considered by themselves, for relations of morphology are concomitant with relations of classification, dynamics and evolution in the concrete world. Bodies can be analyzed only into particles, and the particles still retain their properties, which may be considered abstractly. ”

“ Homology in form is thus the reciprocal of likeness in kind, so that homologies fall under the same law with kind, and it may be affirmed that whatever is true of an object is true of its homologue in so far as they are identical, which is but another statement of the law already given in classification, that whatever is true of a thing is true of its class identity. We have seen that there is a vast system of homologies extending throughout the universe, commencing with perfect homology in the simple element ”

“ The nerves proper are all tubular cellates. In the lowest units they are cellate, and they are compounded as cellates. In the ganglia they are sacate, and are compounded as sacs. Certain of the ganglia have osseous protection as vertebrae, and every vertebra is a cellate structure as a bone with elaborate differentiation in morphology. The vertebrae that have united to form the cranium are extremely differentiated as morphologic elements, but the most extreme of morphologic elements is found in the organs of sense, every organ having a distinct form, and all preserving the cellate structure. ”

“ The Protozoans are unicellular or simple combinations of cells. Above the Protozoa, animals are organized on four different plans of structure, but they are all compounded of cells, though many of the cells are greatly modified. In these modifications the cellate structure reappears as a fundamental homologue in every organ of all of the higher animals, and it is still found in the animals themselves. The phytons of plants are the homologues of organs in animals. There may be many phytons serving the same functions in plants, as there may be many organs serving the same function in animals ”

“ Development which supervenes upon metamorphosis is the production of cooperative organs all necessary to the life, growth and reproduction of the individual, and these organs have different powers, which in physiology are called functions. The exercise of functions is accomplished by metabolism, which is the recombination of chemical particles so that new particles come to take the place of those rejected. ”

“ In science one noumenon is space, the reciprocal of form; the corresponding noumenon in metaphysic is space as void. Void space is a natural fallacy to men in savagery, while yet the presence of the ambient atmosphere is unknown, and the surface of the earth seems to be an empty theater for breath, wind, and storm existing as disparate bodies having a ghostlike existence. ”

“ By incorporation particles retain in a qualified degree their space relations; that is, the space relations must be fixed within such limits that the incorporation is preserved, for if dissolution supervenes form relations are dissolved. Still, form relations are not fixed with such rigidity as to prevent internal motion. A body may still remain a body within certain degrees of temperature, passing through stages of bulk by contraction and expansion, but if the expansion is increased beyond the critical point the body is dissolved. ”

“ All of these organs, except those for reproduction, have functions relating to the metamorphosis of the individual; but the floral envelope and seed organs are devoted to reproduction. This development of phytons into organisms and organs leads in the study of botany to the consideration of the homologies of the organs. Reproduction in the plant makes a vast stride from ontogeny to phylogeny. Here we are introduced to the subject of heredity. Plants are multiplied in vast numbers and the offspring inherit likeness from parents ”

“ The earth is a cellate body, and from facts revealed by astronomy it is confidently affirmed that the stars are cellate bodies. Finally, homologies are found in plants and animals; thus there is a hierarchy of homologies throughout the universe which constitute a continuum, and logically no plane of demarcation can be discovered which constitutes an absolute gap. ”

“ The cellate homologies of the man are repeated in all mammals, while the same facts can be seen in birds, reptiles, batrachians and fishes, for all the pentalogic classes present a vast hierarchy of homologies, which illustrate the theme of morphology. ”

“ Homologies have a high development in the organization of demotic bodies discovered in the animals, especially as they are represented among the higher insects, but more fully illustrated in the organization of human society. The forms of organization are various. In the tribes of the world families are organized into clans, and clans into phratries, and phratries into tribes, and tribes into confederacies. In passing from savagery to barbarism, the clan becomes the gens. In all the multitudinous forms of tribal society, homologies have been discovered. ”

“ Having imagined an empty space, it still continues to exist in mythology as a void for the theater of gravity, heat, light, electricity and magnetism, after the air itself has been discovered and understood by all civilized men. Now that this notion is dispelled there is no void within the ken of man. All known interspaces have been resolved into forms. If in the depths of the infinitesimal void spaces exist between the particles of ether, it may be well to await their discovery ere we characterize them by assigning properties to nothing. ”

“ As they are compounded, cells are differentiated, and when they are compounded into phytons differentiated cells make differentiated phytons, then differentiated phytons make differentiated higher plants.
In plants there is another set of homologies in the position of the leaves, which is revealed to us in the science of phyllotaxy.
Metamorphosis is growth and decay. One body cannot grow unless another body decays; one crystal cannot increase in size unless some other yields its particles for that purpose ”

“ Then molecules which cannot be seen and cannot be manipulated as individual, but can be discovered only by chemical apparatus, are found by analysis and synthesis to exhibit many homologies, and the science of chemistry undertakes this enterprise. ”

“ The organs of digestion which prepare the food are severally sacs and tubes, and conjointly they constitute a system of sacs and tubes, but in this system locomotion must be accomplished, and hence a muscular system is attached to the digestive system. Thus all the organs of digestion are cellate in that they have the cellate elements, for they are composed of encapsulated parts, or inclosing or inclosed envelopes. ”

“ The sciences of geonomy are divided usually into two correlative groups, called geography, in which five departments are pretty well recognized, namely, ethereal geography, stellar geography, aerial geography, hydrographic geography, and land geography ”

“ In transcendental metaphysics the realities of the world are held to be phenomena in the sense that they are illusions, and are distinguished from noumena, which are the realities. Science deals with phenomena, and scientific men hold that phenomena are realities and noumena in the sense of occult substrates are illusions. ”

“ There are homologies discovered in the atoms, which has given rise to the theory that the atoms discovered in the seventy substances are not ultimate particles, and it must be remembered that it rests only upon the validity of reasoning from homologies, but that all deductive reasoning is based on homologies ”

“ In the family husbands and wives, parents and children are found, and sometimes grandparents and more remote kindred are included. In the gens consanguineal kinship is reckoned in the female line; in the tribe it is reckoned in both male and female lines, and ties of affinity are observed. ”

“ In this exchange particles do not lose speed, but all have their directions changed. That which is required for present consideration is that exercise stimulates the exchange. Now, activity of function increases metabolism ”