And with this change of position it has
changed its line of development; it will now give rise to a new
upper half, not a base as before. The same experiment can be tried
on certain worms with similar results, only head and tail differ far
more than top and base of hydra. Difference in the position of cells
has made vast difference in their line of development. Now in both
embryo and adult there must be some directing influence guiding
these cells. What is it?
An army is more than a mob of individuals; it is individuals plus
organization, discipline, authority. A republic is not square miles
of territory and thousands or millions of inhabitants. It is these
plus organization, central government. Webster claimed that the
central government was, and had to be, before the states. The
organism cannot exist without its parts; it has a very real
existence in and through them. It can coerce them. The state may be
an abstraction, but it is one against which it is usually fatal to
rebel, and which can say to a citizen, Go and be hanged, and he
straightway mounts the scaffold. Now these are analogies and prove
nothing. But in so far as they throw light on the essential idea of
an organism, they may aid us in gaining a right view of our "cell
republic."
Says Whitman in a very interesting article on the "Inadequacy of the
Cell-Theory": "That organization precedes cell-formation and
regulates it, rather than the reverse, is a conclusion that forces
itself upon us from many sides.
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