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WASTE AND REPAIR 117

and low temperature in many of the lower animals *
we understand conversely the rapid waste of
energetic, hot-blooded animals. The deductive
interpretation of waste is easy, but it is different
with repair, for here the analogy between the
organism and an inanimate engine breaks down. The
living creature is a self-stoking, self-repairing, and
also—it may be noted in passing—a self-reproducing
engine. Spencer did not do more than restate the
difficulty when he said that the component units of
organisms have the power of moulding fit materials
into other units of the same order.

In passing to consider the ability which an organism
often has of recomputing itself when one of its
parts has been cut off, just as an injured crystal re-
completes itself, Spencer was led to the hypothesis
that " the form of each species of organism is deter-
mined by a peculiarity in the constitution of its
units—that these have a special structure in which
they tend to arrange themselves; just as have the
simpler units of inorganic matter." " This organic
polarity (as we might figuratively call this proclivity
towards a specific structural arrangement) can be
possessed neither by the chemical units nor the
morphological units, we must conceive it as possessed
by certain intermediate units, which we may term
physiological" But if in each organism the physiological
units which result from the compounding of highly
compound molecules have a more or less distinctive
character, the germ-cell is not so very indefinite after all.

Many of the facts of regeneration are very striking.
A crab may regrow its complex claw, a starfish arm
may regrow an entire body. A snail has been known



	WASTE AND REPAIR 117 and low temperature in many of the lower animals * we understand conversely the rapid waste of energetic, hot-blooded animals. The deductive interpretation of waste is easy, but it is different with repair, for here the analogy between the organism and an inanimate engine breaks down. The living creature is a self-stoking, self-repairing, and also—it may be noted in passing—a self-reproducing engine. Spencer did not do more than restate the difficulty when he said that the component units of organisms have the power of moulding fit materials into other units of the same order. In passing to consider the ability which an organism often has of recomputing itself when one of its parts has been cut off, just as an injured crystal re- completes itself, Spencer was led to the hypothesis that " the form of each species of organism is deter- mined by a peculiarity in the constitution of its units—that these have a special structure in which they tend to arrange themselves; just as have the simpler units of inorganic matter." " This organic polarity (as we might figuratively call this proclivity towards a specific structural arrangement) can be possessed neither by the chemical units nor the morphological units, we must conceive it as possessed by certain intermediate units, which we may term physiological" But if in each organism the physiological units which result from the compounding of highly compound molecules have a more or less distinctive character, the germ-cell is not so very indefinite after all. Many of the facts of regeneration are very striking. A crab may regrow its complex claw, a starfish arm may regrow an entire body. A snail has been known