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قراءة كتاب A Mechanico-Physiological Theory of Organic Evolution

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A Mechanico-Physiological Theory of Organic Evolution

A Mechanico-Physiological Theory of Organic Evolution

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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In the idioplasm of a germ cell arising from the crossing of unlike individuals the micellar rows of the individual determinants have sometimes an intermediate constitution and produce characteristics in the organism which are intermediate between the characteristics of the parents. Sometimes the micellar rows derived from the father and mother respectively lie side by side unchanged in the idioplasm of the offspring in distinct groupings and may reproduce in the organism their respective characteristics side by side, or only one of them may develop, while the other remains latent.

On account of the union of both idioplasms as the result of fecundation, two sexually mature organisms are the more able to form with each other a viable germ cell, the nearer they are genetically related—that is, the more nearly the male and female idioplasms correspond in their configuration and chemical nature, because in this case the micellar arrangements are best suited to each other, and the idioplasm of the new fertile germ cell receives its most suitable nourishment from the mother. If, however, self-fecundation or the closest in-and-in breeding often yields products of less virility and is avoided by nature, this is the result of injurious influences which make themselves felt later on. This is because incompatibilities may be present in too closely related idioplasms and these are sources of weakness in unrestricted development. The more complicated is the idioplasm, the oftener this occurs, whereas absolute lack of crossing is not detrimental to the simplest (asexual) organisms.

11. ACTION OF EXTERNAL INFLUENCES.[E]

The environment provides the organism above all with force and matter for its life processes. It causes no permanent variation and has only an ontogenetic significance, if the limits of the idioplasmic elasticity are not exceeded; it maintains the growth and metabolic assimilation of the individual, and conditions individual (not hereditary) differences, which constitute "nutrition varieties." (See page 30.) These appear as the direct results of operating causes.

When the stress of environment exceeds the limits of idioplasmic elasticity, its influence brings about permanent variations, which are imperceptibly small, it is true, in the single individual, but which, when the stimulus is active for a long period of time in the same manner, increase to perceptible magnitude. These variations are inheritable in the phylogenetic sense and contribute to the formation of varieties and species; they always appear as the results of more or less secondary reactions which make their appearance with stimuli exerted by external causes.

External stimuli exerted on the organism are reproduced in the idioplasm. Since the stimulus is discontinued with each change of the ontogeny and only the idioplasm persists, permanent variations are produced only in the idioplasm by those conditions that produce visible transformations in the mature organism.

The phylogenetic action of external stimuli gives the definite character of adaptation to the idioplasm as it becomes more complex from inner causes and probably these external stimuli have the power to alter this impress only as new idioplasm is automatically formed.

If an external cause acts continuously upon a phylogenetic line, the corresponding variation of the idioplasm reaches, after a time, a maximum, and thus comes to an end, either because the nature of the substance permits no new rearrangement or because the stimulus is no longer active. The cessation of the stimulus results from a micellar rearrangement which indicates the character of the adaptation. If the action of the stimulus lasts for only a short time, the incipient rearrangement of the idioplasm stops, or proceeds independently on account of the impulse received, and the determinant becomes capable of development, even after the impulse has long ceased to act.

Since various intervening transpositions follow upon a stimulus in the organism, the final result which appears as a reaction may turn out variously. The same external causes may, according to the nature of the organism and other circumstances, have very unlike variations as a result. But the internal rearrangement produces in a definite case very definite variations.

On account of the various intermediate steps it is often difficult to discover the external cause of a given adaptive variation. In many cases we recognize it without difficulty in a definite mechanical process or in warmth, light or evaporation. For the most part the stimulus awakens in the organism merely a want, which the reaction of the organism endeavors to supply. Hence it appears that want or lack alone is able to bring about such reactions. Moreover, in the sphere of sex, electric(?) attractions and repulsions co-operate between the idioplasmic determinants to produce phylogenetic variations.

The adaptations of the fully developed organism, which are the results of external influences, consist either only of a specific molecular character (irritability), by virtue of which the individual is capable of responding to those influences with temporary or permanent phenomena, or they consist of finished arrangements. The latter have, in general, a double function: either they protect the organism from external influences whose results they are, or they place it in a condition to apply such environmental influences to their advantage. The preponderance of the one or the other led to the development of the plant or the animal kingdom. In the one case the primordial plasma formed in the cellulose cell wall a stimulus-proof covering. On account of this cell membrane being insensible to stimuli, adaptations in the plant kingdom were restricted essentially to the spheres of nutrition and reproduction. In the other case the irritability and mobility of the primordial plasma increased so that it was placed in a condition to avoid the irritant or make it serviceable by accommodating itself to it. The cells sensible to irritants led in the animal kingdom to the formation of organs of sense and the nervous system.

12. CONDITIONS OF PHYLOGENETIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE DETERMINANTS. ATAVISM.

In the primordial condition, formation and development of the determinants coincide, since the plasma constituting the organism possesses the capability of growing by intussusception of new micellæ and of changing this growth through the action of inner and outer causes. But as the primordial plasma differentiates into idioplasm and soma-plasm, the formation of determinants consists in the transformation of the idioplasm, while the development of determinants consists in the production of soma-plasm and of non-plasmic substances under the influence of the idioplasm.

Only the mature determinant is able to develop, especially if, at the same time, a related and heretofore active determinant must be forced back into the latent condition. But the determinant of an absolutely new form of adaptation, which does not take the place of a preceding one, must develop enough before it can become outwardly manifest, for it to be possessed of a sufficient amount of molecular energy to render its activity possible. For this reason the characteristics of the developed organism change abruptly, notwithstanding the fact that the transformation of

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