Dynamical Evolution: A Lecture Delivered at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's Holl, Mass., Aug., 1893 (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

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Excerpt from Dynamical Evolution: A Lecture Delivered at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's Holl, Mass., Aug., 1893

The statement that energy, in its kinetic and static forms, has been a factor in the production of the shapes of organisms, does not admit of question at the present time. In order that the data in support of this statement may be presented in their simplest forms, it is necessary to begin with the consideration of the physical causes of the configuration of some of the simplest unicellular organisms. In this way it will eventually be pos sible to pass from the consideration of the unicellular to that of the multicellular type, viewed from the same standpoint. It requires but little familiarity with the principles of physical science to discover that similar laws hold with respect to the behavior of fluid and semi-fluid bodies, notwithstanding the fact that we may have before us, in one case, a so-called dead fluid body, and in the other, a fluid or fluent living chemical compound or mixture of compounds. Though the one presents the phenomena of 'dead,' and the other of living, matter, both exhibit the similar and common properties of fluids, namely, those of surface-tension, viscosity and adhesion to the surfaces of other bodies, with which they are brought into contact. Under certain conditions, also, the semi-fluid cells of living bodies undergo reciprocal deformation or altera tion in configuration, as a result of the interaction of the inherent forces above specified, in ways so precisely similar to those seen when a number of semi-fluid, or fluid dead masses, are juxtaposed or brought into contact, that the resemblances are seen to be due to the cooperation of closely similar, if not identical, forces and properties.

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