Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/527

Rh climax of all wonders—greater even than that involved in the evolution of a species or in the making of a world.

The fact of development is everywhere apparent; its principal steps or stages are known for thousands of animals and plants; even the precise manner of development and its factors or causes are being successfully explored. Let us briefly review some of the principal events in the development of animals, and particularly of man, and then consider some of the chief factors and processes of development. Most of our knowledge in this field is based upon a study of the development of animals below man, but enough is now known of human development to show that in all essential respects it resembles that of other animals, and that the problems of heredity and differentiation are fundamentally the same in man as in other animals.

The entire individual—structures and functions, body and mind—develops as a single indivisible unity, but for the sake of clarity it is desirable to deal with one aspect of the individual at a time. For this reason we shall consider first the development of the body, and then the development of the mind.

1. The Germ Cells.—In practically all animals and plants individual development begins with the fertilization of a female sex cell, or egg, by a male sex cell, or spermatozoon. The epigram of Harvey, "Omne vivum ex ovo," has found abundant confirmation in all later studies. Both egg and spermatozoon are alive and manifest all the general properties of living things. How little this fact is appreciated by the public is shown by the repeated announcements by the newspapers that "Professor So-and-so has created life because he has made an egg develop without fertilization." An egg or a spermatozoon is as much alive as is any other cell—as characteristically alive as is the adult animal into which it develops. It is difficult to define life, as it is also to define matter, energy, electricity, or any other fundamental phenomenon, but it is possible to describe in general terms what living things are and what they do. Every living thing whatever, from the smallest and simplest microorganism to the largest and most complex animal, from the microscopic egg or spermatozoon to the adult man, manifests the following distinctive properties:—

1. It contains protoplasm, "the material basis of life," which is composed of the most complex substances known to chemistry. Protoplasm is not a homogeneous substance, but it always exists in the form of cells, which are minute masses of protoplasm composed of many distinct parts, the most important of these being the nucleus and the cytoplasm (Fig. 1). Protoplasm is therefore organized, that is, composed of many parts all of which are integrated into a single system, the cell. Higher animals and plants are composed of multitudes of cells, differing more