Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/540

536 fertilized egg which contains none of the structures of the developed animal, though it may exhibit the polarity and symmetry of the adult and may also contain specific kinds of protoplasm which will give rise to specific tissues or organs of the adult. From this egg cell arise by division many cells which differ from one another more and more as development proceeds, until finally the adult animal results. A specific type of development is due to a specific organization of the germ cells with which development begins, but the earlier differentiations of the egg are relatively few and simple as compared with the bewildering complexities of the adult, and the best way of understanding adult structures is to trace them back in development to their simpler beginnings and to study them in the process of becoming.

7. Development of Functions.—The development of functions goes hand in hand with the development of structures; indeed function and structure are merely different aspects of one and the same thing, namely organization. All the general functions of living things are present in

 A, human embryo of forty-two somites; ages about twenty-one days. B, embryo of about four weeks. C, still older embryo showing the beginnings of the formation of digits. F, embryo of about two months. (After Keibel.)