Organization (biology)

“ Moreover, this maintenance of such conditions becomes secure in proportion as organization advances. Each further complexity of structure, implying some further complexity in the relations between an organism and its environment, must tend to specialize the actions and reactions between it and its environment—must tend to increase the stringency with which it is restrained within such environments as admit of those special actions and reactions for which its structure fits it ”

“ As displayed in individual organisms, the effects of structures on functions are to be studied, not only in the broad fact that the general kind of life an organism leads is necessitated by the main characters of its organization, but in the more special and less conspicuous fact, that between members of the same species, minor differences of structure lead to minor differences of power to perform certain actions, and of tendencies to perform such actions. ”

“ Yet there are other kinds of organization in which the relation to man is not so plainly, or not at all, taken as the controlling idea. For example, biology is often organized on the basis of the growing complexity of the organism, the student beginning with the simple, microscopic cell, and advancing to the more and more complex forms. Formerly, after the Linnaean system, plants were classified according to their similarity of structure. Now both plants and animals are often classified on the basis of their manner of adaptation to their environment. ”

“ Resting upon the law of the division of physiological work, the importance of which was first demonstrated by Milne-Edwards, and upon that of polymorphism, which without it have only a limited and indefinite meaning, consequent on the law of division of protoplasmic masses, it has been the great producer of organization, and establishes a new link between sociology and the branches of biology that are occupied with the constitution and functions of organisms. ”

“ Yet a further cause of progressive alteration and complication in the incident forces, exists. All other things continuing the same, every additional faculty by which an organism is brought into relation with external objects, as well as every improvement in such faculty, becomes a means of subjecting the organism to a greater number and variety of external stimuli, and to new combinations of external stimuli. So that each advance in complexity of organization, itself becomes an added source of complexity in the incidence of external forces. ”

“ But among fishes as a class, and among reptiles as a class, it is observable that, speaking generally, the larger species are framed on the higher types. The critical reader, who has mentally checked these statements in passing them, has doubtless already seen that this relation is not a dependence of organization on growth but a dependence of growth on organization. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The organization of the animals was simply the result of the combination of many independent units. There was no activity of the organism as a whole, but only of its independent parts. Cell life was superior to organized life. Just as, in a city, the city government is a name given to the combined action of the individuals, so are the actions of organisms simply the combined action of their individual cells. ”

“ There had started on its way in the form of evolution a minute cellular organism which had apparently reproduced itself by division, had early learned to combine itself with others, to organize itself into bodies, strange forms of fish, animals, and birds, and had finally learned to organize itself into man. Man, on his part, composed as he was of self-organizing cells, was pushing himself forward into comfort and different aspects of existence by means of union and organization with other men. ”

“ Similar relations exist in the animal body; here we also find the constituents in a definite arrangement which we term organization, and by means of which the body has control over such peculiar conditions that we can not, or at best only in rare cases, imitate them in the laboratory, and produce the same reactions as are produced by the body. ”

“ According to this theory, the structure and functions of animals are to be studied by the guidance of their analogy only; our attention is to be turned, not to the fitness of the organization for any end of life or action, but to its resemblance to other organizations by which it is gradually derived from the original type. ”

“ The proofs that are relied upon to establish the operation and effect of these agencies in producing the results that are claimed for them, ought to show that, in one or more instances, an animal of a superior organization which, when left to the natural course of its reproduction by the union of its two sexes, always produces its own distinct type and no other, has, in fact, been itself evolved out of some lower and different organism by the agencies of natural and sexual selection operating among the individuals of that lower type. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the principles here briefly sketched out, there is no innate or necessary tendency in each being to its own advancement in the scale of organization. We are almost compelled to look at the specialization or differentiation of parts or organs for different functions as the best or even sole standard of advancement; for by such division of labour each function of body and mind is better performed. ”

“ On the contrary, if we begin with the end which comprises animals the most simple in organization, the poorest in faculties and in organs—in a word, the most imperfect in all respects—we necessarily remark, as we gradually ascend in the series, a truly progressive complication in the organization of these different animals, and we see the organs and faculties of these beings successively multiplying and diversifying in a most remarkable manner. ”

“ We know that when circumstances demand it, such changes of habit do take place in animals; and we know that if the new habits become the dominant ones, they must eventually in some degree alter the organization. Observe now, however, a further consequence. There must arise not simply a tendency towards the differentiation of each race of organisms into several races; but also a tendency to the occasional production of a somewhat higher organism. ”

“ On this condition only does the process of organization appear possible. We might almost say that just as some race of animals, which multiplies and spreads into divers regions of the earth, becomes differentiated into several races through the adaptation of each to its conditions of life; so, the originally homogeneous population of cells arising in a fertilized germ-cell, becomes divided into several populations of cells that grow unlike in virtue of the unlikeness of their circumstances. ”

“ Biotic organization proper consists of some kind of combination of the biological units or cells into tissues and organs, thus forming a compound or complex body called an organism. Such combinations are formed in a great variety of ways and the primary units are integrated in all degrees. In the highest organisms there is complete integration and interdependence of parts. ”

“ An organization of a lower order of individuals than these human organizations is to be found in a hive of bees. This is made up of the individual bees, and these, in carrying on the general work of the hive, are known to practice the division of labor. ”

“ It may be laid down, as a universal law of the redistribution of matter, that organization is the product of the antagonistic tendencies of attraction and repulsion during the period in which the former prevails. Organization is, then, the great distinguishing characteristic of the process of evolution. The organization of the solar system is the result of this competitive struggle between these two agencies. It is the same with an organism. ”

“ For these he depends on the labours of other specialists; and therefore the higher the state of civilization the more complete is the state of interdependence of the members of the community.
So in higher animal organisms we find that all cells have taken up special duties—have all become specialists. Every kind of cell performs one function specially well and the others not so well, or not at all. ”

“ The differences in the conditions of life have a modifying influence on the organization, the general form, and the parts of animals, and so has the use or disuse of organs. In the first beginning only the very simplest and lowest animals and plants came into 113 existence; those of a more complex organization only at a later period. ”

“ If by Organization we are to understand not simply organized substance, but a more or less complex arrangement of that substance into separate organs, the question is tantamount to asking whether the simplest animals and plants have life? ”

“ To make sure whether the exercise of life tends to extend and develop the organization, it suffices to consider the state of the organs of any animal which has just been born, and to compare them in this condition with what they are when the animal has attained the period when its organs cease to receive any new development. ”

“ At present we only know the principal law of the organization, the power of the exercise of the functions of life, the influence of the movement of fluids in the supple parts of organic bodies, and the power which the regenerations have of conserving the progress acquired in the composition of organs. ”

“ No true sociology could be established before the facts of biology were known, as the one results from the other. In both, the ruling principle is that of association, with the evolution of a directing power. An animal is an association of cells. Every association implies division of labour. Now, progress in organic development means the slow constitution of an organ—the brain—which shall direct the body. ”

“ It is in the classes which comprise the living bodies whose organization is the least complex that we can observe and bring together facts the most luminous, observations the most decisive on the origin of these bodies, on their reproduction and their admirable diversification, finally on the formation and the development of their different organs, the whole process being aided by the concurrence of generations, of time, and of circumstances. ”

“ All animals therefore, I contend, have a similar cause of their organization, originating from a single living filament, endued indeed with different kinds of irritabilities and sensibilities, or of animal appetencies; which exist in every gland, and in every moving organ of the body, and are as essential to living organization as chemical affinities are to certain combinations of inanimate matter. ”

“ It results that the multiplied repetitions of these acts of organization strengthen, extend, develop, and even create the organs which are necessary. It is only necessary attentively to observe that which is everywhere occurring to convince ourselves of the well-grounded basis of this cause of organic developments and changes.
“Moreover, every change acquired in an organ by a habit of use sufficient to have produced it is then preserved by heredity (génération) if it is common to the individuals which, in fecundation, unite in the reproduction of their species. ”

“ But organization does not long rest on this low stage of unicellular simplicity, for, as we pass from these lowest forms into higher, we find cell added to cell, until many millions of such units become associated in a single organism, where each cell, or each group of cells, has its own special work, while all combine for the welfare and unity of the whole.
In the most complex animals, however, even in man himself, the component cells, notwithstanding their frequent modification and the usual intimacy of their union, are far from losing their individuality. ”

“ That the cell consists of more elementary units of organization, is indicated by a priori evidence so cogent as to have driven many of the foremost leaders of biological thought into the belief that such units must exist, whether or not the microscope reveals them to view. ”

“ The fact that animals and plants at the present time show such various degrees of organization is also accounted for on the last supposition, for those of lowlier organization are merely of more recent origin and have not progressed so far in idioplasmic development. ”

“ 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. ”