Reduplication

“ In seeking the answer it will be useful to ask ourselves another question. What should we have expected the drop to do? Well, to this I suppose most people would be inclined, arguing from analogy with a solid, to reply that it would be reasonable to expect the drop to flatten itself, and even very considerably flatten itself, and then, collecting itself together again, to rebound, perhaps as a column such as we have seen, but not to form this regular system of rays and arms and subordinate drops. ”

“ Hence a divergence, which on the part of the old is fatal, on the part of the young is involuntary; and this divergence, at first insensible, increases slowly, like every separation of branches, and the twigs separate without detaching themselves from the parent stem. ”

“ These two operations of destruction and renovation, inverse the one to the other, are absolutely connected and inseparable, in this sense at any rate, that destruction is the necessary condition of renovation. The phenomena of functional destruction are themselves the precursors and the instigators of material regeneration, of the formative process which is silently going on in the intimacy of the tissues. The losses are repaired as they take place; and equilibrium being re-established as soon as it tends to be broken, the body is maintained in its composition. ”

“ If we observe more closely the history and stages of disaggregation, we find that, although the process itself is going on within the centre nucleus of the aggregate, the course of the process is inverse, from the periphery to the centre. This law is really a corrolary of the first law of degeneration. For the nucleus of the moment aggregate usually consists of moments that have early become organized, and round which more moments gather from all sides, the aggregate finally attaining a high grade of organization. ”

“ Furthermore, the fact of arrest with subsequent modification and degradation of function shows that the adaptation reached by the moment in its mature state is really kept in stable equilibrium by its more or less continued reproduction. Each reproduction of the moment is indispensable to the existence of the next one, and manifests its influence by maintaining the succeeding moment in the stage of maturity reached by the long series of modifications.
The moment of the synthetic type profits by experience, the moment of the desultory type does not. ”

“ As anything which disturbs the constitution is apt to lead to reversion, that is, to the resumption of a former character, it appears probable that when secondary radicles grow downwards or lateral shoots upwards, they revert to the primary manner of growth proper to radicles and shoots. ”

“ A system is called practically unstable when a very small (not necessarily indefinitely small) disturbance or variation in its condition will produce a considerable change. In the former part of this paper, in which the influence of surfaces of discontinuity was neglected, a system was regarded as practically unstable when such a result would be produced by a disturbance of the same order of magnitude as the quantities relating to surfaces of discontinuity which were neglected. ”

“ It is a corollary that when the environment is changed, the equilibrium of functions is disturbed, and there must follow one of two results—either the equilibrium is overthrown or it is re-adjusted: there is a re-equilibration. ”

“ Negative disintegration occurs in those cases where, as among the compound Hydrozoa, there is a continuous development of new individuals by budding from the bodies of older individuals; and where the older individuals are thus prevented from growing to a greater size, or reaching a higher degree of integration. ”

“ It is true that in some inferior creatures the cycle of successive changes admits of a certain indefiniteness—that it may be suspended for a long period by desiccation or freezing, and may afterwards go on as though there had been no breach in its continuity. ”

“ If some function is habitually performed in excess of the requirement, or in defect of the requirement; and if, as a consequence, there is an often repeated perturbation of the functions at large, there results some chronic derangement in the balance of the functions. Necessarily reacting on the structures, and registering in them its accumulated effects, this derangement works a general deterioration; and when the vital energies begin to decline, the moving equilibrium, further from perfection than it would else have been, is sooner overthrown: death is more or less premature. ”

“ If equilibrium be disturbed at one point, it is reestablished only by propagating its own disturbance to all the internal equilibria; and, in order that it may itself endure, it must not be disturbed by a perturbation of reaction from within; the internal equilibria must be restored at the expense of the forces developed by the nutrition, and must be fixed by modifications of structure. ”

“ A sudden and complete disturbance of the measure may result in the gravest consequences, even in death. We have here an instance in point. We must therefore lay ourselves out to restore as quickly, and as effectually as possible, the steady measure that has been disturbed ”

“ Disintegration would now set in, or, to speak more exactly, disintegration would now begin to show an excess over integration, for, ever since the earliest vital phenomenon, disintegration has constantly accompanied integration. Among the various modes in which the decline of the organism is gradually brought about, there is one which resembles all the others, inasmuch as it constitutes a loss to the individual, but which differs from them in that it gives rise to new organisms. ”

“ If we took a narrower point of view, and if we only considered regeneration proper from the wound itself, we might probably at first be inclined to advocate the doctrine that the removing of some obstacles might in fact be the stimulus to the process of restoration; but, even then, why is it that just what is wanted grows out? Why is there not only growth, but specific growth, growth followed by specification? ”

“ Curious: this law of mutation, which also is a law written in man's inmost thought, had been deciphered by these old earnest Thinkers in their rude style; and how, though all dies, and even gods die, yet all death is but a phoenix fire-death, and new-birth into the Greater and the Better! ”

“ Various causes prevent the retrogression from being everywhere equal, since the conditions under which retrogression takes place cannot be an exact reversal of those under which evolution occurred; for instance, the retrogressing wing of the apteryx is attached to a body which has not undergone a pari passu retrogression. ”

“ In short, whether the succession of events be taken as continuous or not, the attempt to translate the axiom that 180whatever happens has its ground in the nature of the whole system to which it belongs, into the doctrine that the posterior in time is completely determined by and dependent on the prior, leads straight to the infinite regress. And, as we said in our last chapter, the occurrence of the infinite regress is always a sign that there is imperfection somewhere in the thought which sets it up. ”

“ In all cases of progressive effects, whether arising from the accumulation of unchanging or of changing elements, there is an uniformity of succession not merely between the cause and the effect, but between the first stages of the effect and its subsequent stages. ”

“ The admission that not all, but only every deep-seated physiological detailed modification, is or may be bound up with a system of correlated changes, indeed implies that we on our side also acknowledge an internal harmony of parts—an equilibrium, as I have above expressed it. ”

“ Only when the residual effects of change have been developed and elaborated, and the secondary processes have arisen through extension to adjacent cells and subordinate organs of the central organ, do we get the important circular process, from any point within which the whole complex of changes may be set in motion. The possibility of changes which are centrally conditioned comes first with the residual effects of change and the secondary processes. ”

“ Thus, the separation of parts usually united has been shown to depend on an excess of [Pg 485] development, the persistent union of parts, usually separate in the adult state, has been traced to an arrest of the process of development, by no means necessarily coexistent with diminished growth. The diminished or increased number of parts is, in like manner, attributable to analogous causes, as also are the variations in arrangement and form, spoken of under the heads of Displacement, Peloria, Substitution, &c. ”

“ Where indeed in this crowded, topsy-turvey world, with its headlong changes and helter-skelter readjustments, its new tolerances and indifferences and accommodations, was there room for a character fashioned by slower sterner processes and a life broken under their inexorable pressure? And then, in a flash, she viewed the chaos from a new angle, and order seemed to move upon the void. If the old processes were changed, her case was changed with them; she, too, was a part of the general readjustment, a tiny fragment of the new pattern worked out in bolder freer harmonies. ”

“ Thus, in regard to the dry land itself, there has been fixity, on the one hand, and mutation on the other, of a most paradoxical aspect, till we understand something of the great law of constant change united with perennial fixity in nature. ”

“ Powers are released by mutilation of which in the normal conditions of life no sign can be detected. All who have tried to analyse the phenomena of regeneration are compelled to have recourse to the metaphor of equilibrium, speaking of the normal body as in a state of strain or tension (Morgan) which when disturbed by mutilation results in new division and growth. The forces of division are inacessible to ordinary means of stimulation. ”

“ In biology, the arrest of development modifies the organ in its function and structure, and often acts by rebound on other organs; in psychology the same thing happens, and, in addition, the arrested development of a tendency modifies its nature and its reaction on cognate phenomena. ”

“ This loss, this change, which commences with life and terminates only with death, is compensated for by the constant renewal of the whole frame by the deposition and assimilation, or organisation, of matter from the blood, which thus becomes gradually thinner and impoverished, unless, in its turn, it receives a corresponding supply of its vital elements. ”

“ In any complex moving equilibrium alterations of larger elements inevitably cause alterations of elements immediately dependent on them, and these again of others: the effects reverberate and re-reverberate throughout the entire aggregate of actions down to the most minute. Of resulting structural changes a few will be conspicuous, more will be less conspicuous, and so on continuously multiplying in number and decreasing in amount. ”

“ Their modifications are new directions, amplitudes of new vibrations, which place them in equilibrium with the forces which the ensemble of the aggregate, as modified by the environment, brings to bear upon them. These modifications endure as long as equilibrium endures, and are ever transmitted to the new units which spring from the former ones, until, on the equilibrium being disturbed, a new breaking-up of the existing relations necessitates others. ”

“ The reader will easily convince himself that in an exact treatment of the equilibrium of such a double bubble we must recognize a certain negative tension in the line of intersection of the three surfaces of discontinuity. ”

“ It is in this way that most of those uniformities of succession are generated, which are not cases of causation. When a phenomenon goes on increasing, or periodically increases and diminishes, or goes through any continued and unceasing process of variation reducible to an uniform rule or law of succession, we do not on this account presume that any two successive terms of the series are cause and effect. ”

“ When a cell has entered on such course of "miserly" conduct, it may lose all power of drawing on its own supplies, and finally that of accumulating more, and passes into the state of "rest." To resume activity there is needed either a change in the internal conditions—demanding the lapse of time—or in the external conditions, or in both. ”

“ Decline and reversal.—We have seen that under the continuous action of light, response begins to decline. Sometimes this process is very rapid, and in any case, under continued light, the deflection falls.
(1) The decline may nearly reach zero. If now the light be cut off there is a rebound towards recovery downwards, which carries it below zero, followed by an after-oscillation (fig. 108, a) .
(2) If the light be continued for a longer time, the decline goes on even below zero; that is to say, the response now becomes apparently negative. ”

“ Besides the direct opposition between that continual disintegration which rapid genesis implies, and the fulfilment of that pre-requisite to extensive organization—the formation of an extensive aggregate, there is an indirect opposition which we may recognize under several aspects. The change from homogeneity to heterogeneity takes time; and time taken in transforming a relatively-structureless mass into a developed individual, delays the period of reproduction. ”

“ Dissolution is the counterchange which sooner or later every evolved aggregate undergoes. Remaining exposed to surrounding forces that are unequilibrated, each aggregate is ever liable to be dissipated by the increase, gradual or sudden, of its contained motion ”