Orgon

“ Now, then, what is the first, the simplest form of organization—the primordial type of organic creatures? It is a cell. For, notice what is really meant by an organism—an organized creature. It is a creature that has functions dependent upon organs or parts. There is, then, in the very simplest organism already a manifestation of Von Baer's great law in biology—differentiation. Without differentiation there is no organization, and without organization, again, no life. ”

“ Hence, life is not a result of organization, but vice versa. Amorphous protoplasm gives rise to organized forms. Having already, in previous writings, called attention to the high importance of the Moneres from this and other points of view, I can here only refer to those papers. At present I must content myself with pointing out the importance of the Moneres in connection with the great question of the origin of life. The oldest organisms, sprung by spontaneous generation (Urzengung) from inorganic matter, must have been Moneres. ”

“ Organ, Choir and Congregation.
Even in Scotland, however, the custom of a rather lively postlude from the organ as the people are retiring is growing, as in Free St. Georges, Edinburgh, which has the best organist I have heard in Great Britain, Mr. Hollins. He is blind, but I have never heard a man pour such melody from an organ, or lead a singing congregation more judiciously and effectively with an instrument. At times he leaves the organ quite silent in the midst of the hymn, beating time with his hand, and throwing out the voices of the people themselves. ”

“ In the first edition the principle was raised of individual bodies being alone the object of Natural History, and that in the next place they are to be arranged according to the combination of their organs or component parts, and by no means after the division or mere form of a single organ; that, for example, a special organ or anatomical system lies as the basis of each Vegetable and Animal class, and that there must be therefore as many classes, and no more, as there are cardinal organs present upon which to found them. ”

“ The structure of organs is not to be recalled, and their flexibility and vital interdependence with the elements can at most show themselves in the ability of the elements to change the persons who at a given moment compose the organ, and replace them with more suitable persons. Nevertheless it is continually happening, even in cases of rather high sociological development, that the group power flows back from the organs to its original source, though this may be but a process of transition to the formation of new organs. ”

“ First life was like a rabble, a mob, without thought or head, then slowly organization went on, as it were, from family to clan, from clan to tribe, from tribe to nation, or centralized government—the brain of man—all parts duly subordinated and directed,—millions of cells organized and working on different functions to one grand end,—cooperation, fraternization, division of labor, altruism, etc.
The cell was the first invention; it is the unit of life,—a speck of protoplasm with a nucleus. ”

“ Rightly understood, the doctrines of Protoplasm, of Gemmules, et id omne genus, if they aid little, can do little harm. For, to the physiologist, there remains the great fact that organization is life. In, through, and by means of organization, or, if you prefer it, an organism, is matter endowed with life. So far as physiology, and therefore natural science and physics, is concerned in this matter, life does not exist without organization. ”

“ Every one who partakes of Him, partakes likewise of his chrism, because Christ is the head of the Church, and the Church and Christ [pg 322] one Body.279 We have here in Origen's thought one and the same divine power, proceeding forth from the Incarnation, which forms first the Body of the Lord, and then gathers into this Body every individual as a copy of the Christ. The heathen scoffer had objected: why send forth one spirit into one corner of the earth? It was needed to breathe that spirit into many bodies, and to send them forth into all the world. ”

“ If the organized being can infuse into new matter its vital forces, is there any contradiction in supposing this infusion to take place in the full measure which is requisite for the production of a new individual? The force of organic assimilation is transferred to the very matter on which it acts; it may be transferred so that the operation of the forces produces not only an organ, but a system of organs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It can feed without a mouth, digest without a stomach, walk without feet, and reproduce itself by simple division. By taking this Moner as the commencement of animal life, or rather as the first animal, it is easy to follow the development of the organic structure through all the forms of life to man himself. In this way finally every muscle, bone and joint, every organ, form and function may be accounted for. ”

“ Does even my friend say that it is a crime to name Origen, or to give him praise for his talents? If Origen is proclaimed as ‘such and so great a man,’ this makes us the more anxious to be told whether he is in other passages spoken of as ‘an apostolic man,’ or ‘a teacher of the churches,’ or by any similar expressions which appear to commend not only his talents but his faith. ”

“ But in the case of bodies, it is not due to the action of men but to the spermatic principles, that one is short and little, another great, and another of middle height; but in the case of souls, it is our free-will, and actions of such a kind, and habits of such a kind, that furnish the reason why one is great, or little, or of middle height ”

“ The tree is constantly developing new branches, bursting through the old bark, sending forth new shoots. That is the function of the single cells that burst the old union, forming the kernel of a new, better organization. Our body too has two principal kinds of cells, the corporal cells that constitute our organs, and the germinal cells from which new organisms are developed. The germinal cells in the body of Christ are the seceders, the original spirits who will no longer tolerate the union of the group and are directly called and guided by the Genius of Humanity, by Christ's own voice. ”

“ Generation is a successive formation, both in relation to the quantity as well as the quality, and the specific organs. It having been preposited, that an organism has several organic systems, so must these range according to their importance, and like the systems of nature, behind each other, and be also developed in this order. As the whole of nature has been a successive fixation of æther, so is the organic world a successive fixation of infusorial mucus-vesicles. The mucus is the æther, the chaos for the organic world. The semen of all animals consists also of infusoria ”

“ The Novum Organon, considering the time when it came from his pen, is doubtless one of the greatest exhibitions of genius in the history of human thought. It showed the modern world the way out of the scholastic method and reverence for dogma into the experimental method and reverence for fact. ”

“ Each great and separate group has its own system of essential organs, and it is these systems which can be seen to descend, within the limits of the group, from their most complex to their simplest form. But each organ, considered individually, does not descend by equally regular gradation; the gradations are less and [Pg 287] less regular according as the organ is of less importance, and is more susceptible of modification by the conditions which surround it. ”

“ An organ, which again repeats in its miniature the whole animal itself, of which it is only a part, must necessarily be the highest point unto which an organism can attain. With the eye the organization, and consequently nature, has been concluded. ”

“ I think the tutor in this case was never matched, except by the country organist. A master of the instrument went into the organ-loft during service, and asked the organist to let him play the congregation out; consent was given. The stranger, when the time came, began a voluntary which made the people open their ears, and wonder who had got into the loft: they kept their places to enjoy the treat. ”

“ An army of tens of thousands of busy living cells is at work beneath that velvet surface, building the bony antlers, preparing for the battles of autumn. Each minute cell knows its work, and does it for the general good—so perfectly is the body knit into an organic whole. ”

“ And since the generator is like the generated, it follows of necessity that both the sensitive soul, and all other like forms are naturally brought into existence by certain corporeal agents that reduce the matter from potentiality to act, through some corporeal power of which they are possessed.
Now the more powerful an agent, the greater scope its action has: for instance, the hotter a body, the greater the distance to which its heat carries. ”

“ The integration and differentiation of vital function on the one hand, and the preparation and composition of food-material on the other hand, form—as we will become fully aware further on—the two great divisions in the subject-matter of the science of organization, divisions corresponding to the fundamental biplicity of all advanced organization, its animal and its vegetative life. Organization in the sphere of animal life is the expression of the development of manifold outside relations in the vital unit. ”

“ Proceeding with our examination of the sentiments of Origen, I would here premise, that not the smallest doubt can be entertained that Origen believed the angels to be ministering spirits, real, active, zealous workmen and fellow-labourers with us in the momentous and awful business of our eternal salvation. ”

“ The cause of all structural organization is the sentient spiritual "life" within; this it is which not only organizes the tiny vegetable and animal bioplasts, but it unceasingly animates and guides their marvellous operations, constructing and sustaining, through their unconscious agency, all the complex living machinery in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, including the material body of man. ”

“ So, too, birds, animals, insects and fishes are commonly found in groups. And every muscle in our bodies consists of a group of similar fibres, and every crystal in the bosom of the earth, of a group of lesser crystals.
It is evidently God's plan, therefore, to arrange things of a similar nature into groups or societies. And we may reasonably conclude that man, for whose behoof all other things were created, would not form an exception to this general plan. ”

“ The systems of animal life divide only into two kinds of organs, into those of sensation and those of motion, into the solar and planetary, or central and peripheric.
a. MOTOR ORGANS.
2369. Bone and muscle are not societies, but only poles of one system. There is therefore no mere bony organ, and no mere muscular organ. Meanwhile we will here regard them in particular or "per se."
1. Osseous Organs.
2370. The first bones were branchial arches or tracheal rings. When the lungs were developed from the branchiæ, the branchial arches were repeated as ribs or pulmonary arches. ”

“ Every organic cell is to a certain degree an independent organism, a so-called “elementary organism,” or an “individual of the first order.” Every higher organism is, in a measure, a society or a state of such variously shaped elementary individuals, variously developed by division of labour. ”

“ The eye is an organ of the conceiving apparatus, but it has ancillary organs of digestion, circulation, motility, and probably of reproduction. The animal itself is an organ in a society of animals. Society is the culmination of a hierarchy of organs of lower grade, and every organ in every grade of the hierarchy has ancillary organs. ”

“ They are rather like the local eddies in an ever-flowing and ever-changing stream of fluids. Substance which was at one moment a part of a cell, passes out and a new substance enters. What is it that prevents the local whirl in this unstable stream from changing its form? How is it that a million muscle cells remain alike, collectively ready to respond to a nerve impulse?" According to one view, expressed by Professor Rand, "Organization is something that we read into natural phenomena. It is in itself nothing." ”

“ Well, I follow the example of the monks of Heidelberg, and preserve my body by introducing into it every year new elements, which regenerate the old. Every morning a new and fresh atom replaces in my blood, my flesh, and my bones, some particle which has perished. ”

“ In the most general case, that, as we have said, of the derivation of plants and animals from one another, the latent organization is either itself similar to the old organization, or has the power of communicating to new matter the old organic form. ”

“ In the case of a present material object, there is no doubt as to the answer: order and co-existence come from an organ of sense, receiving the impression of an external object. This organ is constructed precisely with a view to allowing a plurality of simultaneous excitants to impress it in a certain order and in a certain way, by distributing themselves, all at one time, over selected portions of its surface. ”