Specializ tion and Organization, 
COMPANION PRINCIPLES OF ALL PROGRESS. 
THE MOST IMPORTANT NEED OF 
AMERICAN BIOLOGY. 
BY 
C. O. WHITMAN. 
Reprinted from “ Biological Lectures, i8qoP 
BOSTON, U.S.A.: 
PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY. 
1891. Specialization and Organization, 
COMPANION PRINCIPLES OF ALL PROGRESS. 
THE MOST IMPORTANT NEED OF 
AMERICAN BIOLOGY. 
BY 
C. O. WHITMAN. 
Reprinted from 11 Biological Lectures, iSgo,” 
BOSTON, U.S.A.: 
PUBLISHED BY GINN & COMPANY. 
1891. FIRST LECTURE. 
SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION, 
COMPANION PRINCIPLES OF ALL PROGRESS. THE MOST 
IMPORTANT NEED OF AMERICAN BIOLOGY. 
By C. O. WHITMAN. 
A healthy faith in the progress of biology pre- 
supposes a correct understanding of the tendency to 
specialize. It is important to know not only that special- 
ization is a necessity, but a necessity that need not be 
feared. It may sound a little paradoxical to assert, that 
this tendency means union as well as separation; but 
it is only a truth illustrated in the most familiar facts 
of science and of every-day life. Let us look at some 
of the broader aspects of this tendency, in order to 
learn whither it is carrying us and what its implications 
are. 
Naturalists are long accustomed to the idea that the 
living body represents a commonwealth of cells. The 
metaphor is based, not upon superficial or fanciful re- 
semblances, but upon analogies that lie at the very 
foundation of organic and social existence. On the 
same grounds that the sociologist affirms that a society 2 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
is an organism, the biologist declares that an organism 
is a society. 
A society is an organized whole, the unity of which 
consists in, and is measured by, the mutual dependence 
of its members. The living body is an organization 
of individual cells with the same bond of unity. The 
principle of organization in both cases is the division 
of labor or function. The primitive social aggregate 
— the undifferentiated germ of society — is composed 
of practically like units, with like simple needs. Every 
one is a factotum, fulfilling all needs in and for himself. 
It is all self-dependence and no mutual dependence. 
The coherence of the whole is so slight that it can 
break up into as many parts as there are individuals, 
without the sacrifice of a single tie or condition essential 
to existence. 
In course of time, division of labor comes into play, 
and with it social organization has its beginning. The 
different members, instead of doing all sorts of work, 
and aiming only to supply their own individual wants, 
begin to limit themselves to such work as their tastes, 
capacities, surroundings, etc., commend to them. This 
concentration of effort, which Coleridge, in his theory of 
life, has defined as “the tendency to individuation,” 
both strengthens and improves the productive power, 
thus enabling a few to do the work of many. Each 
class of specializers produce in excess of their own 
needs, and through the exchange of these surplus prod- 
ucts the needs of all are supplied. 
The social integration that accompanies such division 
of labor may best be seen under conditions conceived 
as simple as possible. Let it be assumed that we have SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
3 
an aggregate of a hundred individuals, equal in compe- 
tency and capacity for work, and all living under like 
conditions. Let us assume that the necessities of exist- 
ence for each member require ten kinds of labor in 
equal quantities. 
Now as long as each individual fulfils all ten needs, 
there will be no division of labor, but rather a divison 
of energy and correspondingly inferior products. The 
aggregate will represent a mere chance collection of 
independent individuals, not a whole of mutually depend- 
ent parts. But introduce the division of labor, and see 
how social integration follows. To take a simple form 
of division, we will suppose the aggregate divided into 
ten equal groups, one for each kind of work. 
We still have the same workers, the same energy 
expended, the same work accomplished, and the same 
needs fulfilled ; all we have done is simply to divide the 
labor instead of the time, and distribute it in such a way 
that each person gives his entire time to one work 
instead of dividing it ten. The change, in itself 
considered, looks extremely simple and insignificant; 
but, when measured by the consequences entailed, its 
importance becomes at once apparent. Each work is 
now accomplished by ten men instead of a hundred, with 
the result that each individual fulfils only one-tenth of 
his own needs, and depends upon his fellows for the rest. 
Instead of jacks-at-all-trades, we now have specialists 
working under a social compact, which makes each indi- 
vidual the indispensable servant of every other. The 
co-ordination of individuals is such as to maintain a 
complete consensus of functions; which is the funda- 
mental trait of a perfectly organized community, and 4 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
its chief distinction from a purely gregarious aggre- 
gate. 
If the members of such a community, in adaptation to 
the conditions it imposes, should become so far differ- 
entiated as to lose the power of providing for more 
than one or two of the ten necessities of existence, 
the social unity would become as inviolable as the 
physiological unity of the higher organisms. Break 
it, and every member would soon perish, just as certainly 
as every cell would die if the body were irreparably 
injured. The social organism might endure the loss 
of a limited number of its members, as the animal 
organism survives the death of individual cells and 
even the loss of certain organs. These losses may be 
repaired, in the one case by substitution, in the other 
by regeneration. 
If reparation fails, all the remaining parts suffer in 
proportion to their dependence on the parts lost. In 
either case, the more complete the division of labor, 
broadly speaking, the more perfect becomes the unity 
of parts, the more complete the coincidence of the indi- 
vidual with the general welfare. 
The parallel is more complete than our assumed case 
is suited to illustrate. We have considered only the 
two extremes of a series, and have not allowed for any 
connection through intermediate stages of development. 
But division of labor is not an artificial affair arbitrarily 
fashioned to our convenience ; it is not a thing of human 
device, for it antedates both the written and the un- 
written history of our race. In the organic world, its 
development has been as slow and as long as the rise 
of the beings now inhabiting the earth ; in the human SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
5 
race, its period of growth coincides with that of civiliza- 
tion itself. 
We cannot know the circumstances of its first intro- 
duction. We assume that opportunities for the first 
steps in the division of labor presented themselves for- 
tuitously, and that, the opportunities being given, the 
inherent advantages of the principle in the struggle for 
existence would be quite enough to secure it the aid of 
natural selection. 
The principle carries with it two grand advantages — 
two primary conditions of progress. First, the concen- 
tration of energy; and secondly, the economical com- 
bination of energies. The one holds the possibilities 
of intensifying and improving; the others, the possibili- 
ties of utilizing and augmenting. These conditions and 
their contained possibilities, given with the division of 
labor, are the possibility, not only of all social, but 
also of all organic evolution. 
We may now go still further and assert that the evo- 
lution of the cell, the relatively simple structural unit 
of the organic world, would have been an impossibility 
without the division of labor. Imperfect as our knowl- 
edge of the cell still is, it is now certain that it has an 
organization based upon a division of function. 
There is already an overwhelming amount of concur- 
rent evidence to show that the nucleus is the real seat 
of the hereditary tendencies ; and the deeper we pene- 
trate into the complexities of its structure, and the more 
we study its internal transformations and movements, 
the more evident it becomes that the nucleus has had 
its evolution, which carries the subdivision of labor still 
farther back. 6 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
Our knowledge, so far as it goes, points to the con- 
clusion that division of labor is not only co-extensive 
with life, but also coeval with it. Indeed, we should be 
on the side of all the probabilities, in assuming that the 
simplest possible form of living matter presupposes this 
principle. We are not, of course, to confound the prin- 
ciple with life itself, nor with the cause of life ; it is only 
a condition or means to an end. The universal corre- 
late of division of labor is union of the laborers. It 
always means specialization, and always implies organ- 
ization. 
Thus the paradox resolves itself. As Herbert Spencer 
long ago pointed out in his Social Statics, “progress is 
toward complete separateness and complete union,” and 
“the highest individuation is joined with the greatest 
mutual dependence.” 
As you see, the principle is one which may re-inaugu- 
rate itself, as often as a new order of units is evolved 
with needs that can be most economically and efficiently 
served by a co-operative union. We do not know how 
many times this may have happened before the cell 
order of beings arose ; but the general course of devel- 
opment following this stage, we are now ver-y confident 
about. 
Some of these cells, finding independent nomadic life 
congenial, have persistently declined every temptation 
to part with individual freedom. They have kept their 
freedom, but with it the low estate of unaided individual 
effort. Precious freedom that, which excludes all those 
larger possibilities of life which we see unfolded in the 
organic world. 
Others preferred company to isolation, and herded SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
7 
together in roving colonies. Some of these were 
dominated by a gregarious instinct only, and have 
clung tenaciously to self-freedom, refusing to make any 
sacrifice of personal independence for the sake of a 
physiological union. A few such aggregates, whose 
freedom has been the forfeit of all advancement, still 
survive, as exemplified in some members of the Volvox 
family. In Gonium, for example, the colony consists 
of a few (4-16) flagellate cells, adhering together in 
plate-like form, each self-moving, self-feeding, and self- 
propagating. 
Among these colonial aggregates, there were some, 
however, which found out how to take one or two simple 
steps in labor partnership, and thus advanced to a rudi- 
mentary kind of composite individuality. An interesting 
example is seen in the famous Volvox of Leeuwenhoek, 
in which the evolutionists of last century found a con- 
firmation of their idea, that the germs of plants and ani- 
mals are preformations in miniature, incased one within 
the other. The division of labor is here of such an 
elementary order, that, as Butschli has suggested, we 
may look upon a Volvox colony as a near ally of those 
simple forms from which all the higher plants as well 
as the Metazoa arose. 
The Volvox colonies, composed of numerous individ- 
uals, often more than a thousand, are attached to the 
inner surface of a colonial envelope, at equal distances. 
In each colony we find two kinds of cells ; one with 
two flagella for locomotion, the other without such 
appendages, fulfilling the work of reproduction. This 
single division of labor makes one class of individuals 
the propagators of the species, the other the preservers 8 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
of the colony. Neither class can dispense with the 
services of the other ; and this dependence of part upon 
part gives the colony a certain physiological unity. But 
the integration of the colony is of such a simple order, 
that we might conceive it splitting up into as many 
independent colonies as it contains times the least 
number of cells of both sorts necessary to maintain the 
physiological connexus. Although in practice, we could 
not carry the division so far, still we know that artifi- 
cial, if not spontaneous, division would be possible with- 
out destroying the physiological unity necessary to the 
continued existence of the severed parts. 
One feature of labor-division in Volvox deserves men- 
tion here, chiefly as foreshadowing more complex condi- 
tions seea in higher forms. It is the alternation of 
agamic with gamic generation. The agamic reproduc- 
tive cells are all alike, and correspond to parthenogenetic 
ova; while the gamic generation is represented by two 
distinct kinds of cells answering to ova and spermatozoa, 
and conjugation is necessary to development. 
This alternation of parthenogenesis with hermaphro- 
ditic gamogenesis — is not, we may be sure, an acquisi- 
tion of the colony; it is rather to be regarded as a 
combination of features that originated separately and 
successively among the unicellular ancestors of the col- 
ony. Parthenogenesis must have been the primitive 
mode of reproduction ; gamogenesis undoubtedly origi- 
nated secondarily in adaptation to infusorial conditions 
of life. 
This sequence of generations is common enough 
among the unicellar Protozoa; and the colonial forms 
exhibit it as an inheritance of their component cells. SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
9 
The parthenogenetic colony presents itself, then, as an 
aggregate of individuals with differentiated, but undi- 
vided, reproductive work; the hermaphroditic colony 
explains itself as an aggregate of individuals with differ- 
entiated and sexually-divided reproductive work. The 
association of both sexes in the same colony is an acci- 
dent of aggregation ; for obviously we might have, in 
fact do have, dioecious as well as monoecious colonies. 
The protozoan colony of the Volvox type, represents 
the old infusorial system of labor-division and, super- 
added thereto, the colonial stage of what we may call the 
intercellular system — which runs through all the higher 
organisms. 
With the intercellular system is given a higher order 
of units, capable of combining and recombining to form 
successively higher orders, each carrying all previous 
systems of labor distribution with its own superimposed 
thereon. The ascending series ranges through all 
diversities of form and all complexities of structure 
between the simplest cell-colony and man. Cells com- 
bine into tissues, tissues into organs, organs into organ- 
isms, organisms into organic as well as social aggregates, 
and these in turn into higher units. While the higher 
units are entering into new combinations, their compo- 
nents of the next order below, of the next below 
that, and so on to the lowest, may be undergoing simul- 
taneously special modifications, each struggling to keep 
up its own internal and external adjustments, but always 
in subordination to the welfare of the entire organism. 
When we contemplate the finished mechanism, the prod- 
uct of all these consentaneously and yet unconsciously 
directed energies, these millions of individual minim 10 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
workers, uniting in such intimate fellowship as to consti- 
tute an indissoluble whole — a real conscious intelligent 
unity — with powers so far transcending those of its 
units that we can form no conception of the special 
combinations from which they result, — when we con- 
template this miracle of co-adjustments among myriads 
of units, among these systems of units, and these sys- 
tems of systems, we are not disposed to ridicule the 
judgment that once refused to believe that natural 
forces could produce such wonders, and took refuge 
from the difficulties that beset every mechanical theory 
in the doctrine of preformation. 
If our microscopical aids have enabled us to know 
that organisms are not simple unfoldings of pre-existing 
structures, and have revealed the fact that every devel- 
oping germ actually re-enacts the wonders of a new 
creation, still it is no less an unscrutable mystery than 
before. Indeed one must credit the preformationists 
with having perceived and emphasized the real difficulty 
in the way of any rational theory of generation. We 
endeavor to meet it, by assuming, not pre-existing rudi- 
ments, but pre-existing hereditary units ; not predelinea- 
tions, but potentialities, of structure. Predeterminations 
of some kind or other are a logical necessity, and so 
there is some analogy between our position and that of 
Bonnet, Haller, and Cuvier, and other evolutionists of 
the old school, although we are compelled to regard the 
process of development as one of epigenesis, as conceived 
by Aristotle, Harvey, John Hunter, and Casper Fried- 
rich Wolff. The difference between the two schools re- 
duces itself to the difference between potentialities and 
actualities; and although the difference as understood SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
11 
by the contending parties is utterly irreconcilable, still 
we can understand how, by modifying our potentialities 
in one direction and our actualities in another, the dif- 
ference might be brought near a vanishing point. 
Whether we look at the successive stages connecting 
the relatively homogeneous germ with the completed 
organism, or at the paleontological succession of forms, 
we see that progress in the organic world is always from 
the less to the more heterogeneous. As division of labor 
advances, complexity of structure increases, and the ties 
of mutual dependence multiply and strengthen. In a 
word, the most characteristic trait of evolution is, that 
increasing division of labor conditions increasing union 
of the laborers. Division and union, differentiation and 
integration, specialization and organization, march hand 
in hand. 
The same truth comes perhaps more clearly into view, 
when, taking the protozoan colony for our starting-point, 
we run up the scale of animal organizations. Passing 
on from the Volvox colony, we soon come to an instruc- 
tive stage represented in the common fresh-water Hydra. 
Although we now know that the organization of this 
animal is far from being as simple as was supposed 
by its discoverer, Trembley, and by other naturalists of 
his time, who regarded it as a connecting link between 
plants and animals, still it affords a striking illustration 
of the fact, that physiological unity is a thing of degrees, 
incomplete according as the division of labor is low. 
A single division of labor, in advance of what we saw 
in Volvox, makes Hydra an unmistakable Metazoon, plac- 
ing it fairly on the main line of animal evolution. It is 
the separation of the digestive from the other functions 12 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
which characterizes the Hydra stage. In correlation 
with this important step, we have one grand and several 
minor structural features introduced. The digestive cells 
arrange themselves together in the form of a tubular 
sack open at one end, thus taking the first step towards 
a rudimentary alimentary canal. Around this sack, the 
remaining cells station themselves, forming another sack 
inclosing the first. The sacks are in close contact, and 
the walls of the outer one are continuous with those of 
the inner one at its open end, so that the inner sack may 
be regarded as an infolding, such as we might rudely 
represent by pushing in the end of a glove-finger. If 
the material were elastic, so that we could draw out the 
double wall around the open end into a number of arm- 
like extensions, we should have a fair model of the Hydra 
body with its tentacles. 
The cells constituting the inner sack, called the ento- 
derm, are in the most favorable situation for attending 
to the food-supply of the entire cell community; and 
natural selection has constrained them to specialize in 
this direction until they have become inoperative in 
other ways, and even incapable of doing anything else. 
Trembley succeeded in turning these creatures inside 
out; and as they lived on after such treatment, he in- 
ferred that the functional differentiation of the two lay- 
ers was so slight that ectoderm and entoderm could 
exchange places and works. The mistake has only 
recently been corrected by a Japanese naturalist. Dr. 
Ischikawa of Tokyo has shown conclusively that Hydra 
cannot live long turned inside out, and that, if left to 
itself after the operation, it soon turns itself back into 
its normal condition. This act of recovery escaped the SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
13 
observation of Trembley, and of others who repeated his 
experiments ; and hence the unity or individuality of the 
Hydra community of cells has generally been estimated 
too low. 
That the two layers carry functions fundamentally dis- 
tinct and non-interchangeable, and that the co-operative 
combination of the two sets of functions is necessary to 
existence, — is, in fact, the very essence of the Hydra 
personality, — is shown by still another fact brought out 
by Mr. Ischikawa. It is generally taught that Hydra 
may be divided ad libitum, and that each fragment will 
have the power to regenerate the whole individual. But 
it turns out that there is a very definite limit to such 
possibilities, which cannot be overstepped without anni- 
hilating individuality and extinguishing even the germ 
of it. An isolated piece of either layer is incapable of 
regenerating the individual. The mutual dependence 
of these two layers is such that they must go together 
or perish. Carry artificial division in any direction that 
does not sunder these complementary parts, and repeat 
the operation as often as you like, the smallest frag- 
ments in which this vital connection is preserved will 
represent, potentially at least, the personality of Hydra. 
This personality comprises a certain number of func- 
tional powers ; and hence the minimum number of cells 
combining these powers in vital relations represents all 
the essential elements of individuality. The fertilized 
ovum unites all these powers as potentialties, and it is 
therefore the individuality in germ. If the ectoderm 
cells, like the entoderm, were all alike, the essentials of 
a Hydra might be said to exist in a single pair of cells, 
one from each layer; but of course we could not hope 
to isolate such a pair of cells in vital union. 14 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
The remarkable thing about such an individuality is, 
that a hundred of them may be added together and the 
sum total will be but one; and yet you may divide this 
one into a hundred ones. 
Mr. Ischikawa succeeded in forcing two individuals 
into complete and permanent coalescence; and for 
aught we can see, the experiment might be repeated 
indefinitely. One Hydra was turned inside out, and 
then pushed into the mouth of another until the diges- 
tive sacks of both were brought together one within the 
other. A bristle was then thrust transversely through 
both bodies to prevent separation. In the course of a 
few days, the two bodies were completely merged in one, 
and the resulting individual was a perfect personal unity, 
bearing two sets of tentacles as the only mark of its 
double origin. 
Having seen in what the essential unity of Hydra 
consists, we can readily understand why such an indi- 
viduality may not be weakened by division or strength- 
ened by doubling. A society of a hundred individuals 
with ten labors, distributed as we supposed, would rep- 
resent a unity with ten essential points of union. Now 
we could double the number of members without in- 
creasing the points of union; and we could divide the 
whole community into ten communities, each with as 
complete a functional unity as that of all combined. 
In the case of Hydra, we could divide more freely, 
because the points of union are fewer. Now what I 
wish to emphasize here is this : The more the points of 
union multiply in a social or an organic body, the more 
complex and extended becomes the integration of its parts, 
and the less susceptible it is to such divisions and fusions SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
15 
as we have described. Bear in mind as we go on, that 
every point of union is a point of division, or specializa- 
tion in labor. 
Our supposed social aggregate, as I have said, admits 
of division into ten independent communities. If, how- 
ever, we multiply the points of union by ten, i.e., if we 
suppose each labor sub-divided into ten specialties, each 
member of the aggregate will fulfil only one-hundredth 
of his own needs, and will depend upon his ninety-nine 
associates for the rest. The mutual dependence is not 
only ten times as great, it is also ten times as extensive, 
for each individual is now a necessity to ninety-nine 
instead of nine others, and the entire aggregate becomes 
an indivisible whole. 
The same processes are followed by like results 
among the cell-constituents of an organism, only here 
we rarely find such simple, and never such complete, 
uniformity in numerical relations. We find no organ- 
ism in which the division of function exactly coincides 
with the number of its component units. Both the 
division of labor and its distribution here tend to adjust 
themselves, first of all, in harmony with the primary 
necessities of existence; and secondly, in correspond- 
ence with that complex of relations, conditions, and 
needs, both internal and external, which hold all the 
possibilities of improving existence, and rising above it 
to conscious life and intelligence. 
In the organic association of cells, nutrition and 
reproduction take precedence in determining the direc- 
tion of development. The needs which centre in 
them are, as a rule, best served, not by giving the 
whole of a given kind of work to a single cell, but by 16 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
dividing it more or less equally among many cells, 
scattered or grouped according to the nature of the 
work. Nature is provident as well as bounteous, and 
so she determines the number of workers not only with 
reference to ordinary needs, but also with a view to 
emergencies. The cell cannot work on indefinitely. 
Exhaustion follows exertion ; rest and recuperation are 
as necessary to the cell as to an individual; hence the 
need of relays. The cell has its own term of existence, 
which is usually much shorter than that of the organ- 
ism ; hence the need of substitutes. So each class of 
specialized cells may greatly exceed in number the actual 
needs of the moment. One of the best illustrations of 
this fact is seen in the reproductive cells, which are 
often so enormously in excess of use, that they are 
scattered in the water or the wind, with not one chance 
in a thousand of ever fulfilling the purpose of their 
existence. All such profuseness, however,-has its mean- 
ing, even though it only neutralize accident, and so 
insure a few the realization of their proper destiny. 
But these hosts of cells suffice for only one of the 
many varieties of reproductive work. They are called 
reproductive cells, not to indicate monopoly of the 
entire work, but pre-eminence merely in one important 
branch of it. Propagation of the species is their task ; 
but this becomes a monopoly only among the higher 
forms of life. The same work may be accomplished by 
budding and fission, processes which prevail very largely 
among plants and many of the lower animals, usually 
supplemented, however, by the more general process of 
reproduction by means of specialized cells. 
But the generation of the species, which follows such SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
17 
different courses, each of which goes on into almost 
endless sub-division, is not the whole of reproduction. 
Reproduction of the species of course includes all other 
kinds of reproduction; nevertheless it is as distinct 
from them as the individual is from its component cells. 
The individual may be the product of a single cell, but, 
once formed, the heterogeneous components must sev- 
erally have their own methods of reproduction, other- 
wise the organism could not keep up its reserves, nor 
supply the places of exhausted, disabled, or worn out 
laborers. These specialized modes of reproduction, as 
varied and as distinct as the histological elements of 
the organism, although derived from the process which 
continues the species, yet differ from it in this impor- 
tant respect, that their products are isogeneous rather 
than heterogeneous. 
This distinction is already well marked in Hydra, 
where we find the entoderm cells so specialized that 
they can reproduce only cells of their own kind. How 
different it is with the ova, which reproduce all kinds of 
cells represented in the Hydra community. 
Certain kinds of work exclude the power of reproduc- 
tion, and such cases call for special provisions of still 
another class. The loss of such power by any class of 
cells is generally made good by a closely allied class, 
or by the younger cells of the same class. Such 
reserves may play a relatively passive part, until the 
time arrives for them to take the place of their prede- 
cessors ; and they may be capable of assuming any one 
of several different roles. Again Hydra furnishes us 
with a simple illustration. The superficial ectoderm 
cells of Hydra, consisting of nettle-cells, nerve-muscle 18 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
cells, etc., are replaced by deeper and younger cells, 
called “ intermedial.” The reproductive cells have the 
same origin. 
The work of reproduction then is not confined to any 
one or two classes of cells; it is divided and sub- 
divided in endless detail, carried all through the organ- 
ism, and distributed independently of most other labors. 
Its elaboration in this or that direction may be cor- 
related with a system of morphological differentiations, 
so extensive and involved that a whole course of lectures 
would be required to elucidate the subject. Take the 
genital system of the vertebrates, or that of forms no 
higher than the annelids, and you will find no end of 
problems yet to be settled. What complicated cycles 
of generation have been followed by many parasitic 
forms, especially among the worms, and what wholesale 
modifications of structure in answer thereto. How 
devious have been the paths of generation in insects, 
and how wonderful the metamorphoses attending them. 
How diverse the ways of multiplication among the 
Tunicates and Coelenterates, and what puzzling suc- 
cessions and combinations of forms have here tried the 
sagacity of naturalists. 
What peculiar corporation aggregates are represented 
in Siphonophore colonies, of which we have a most 
beautiful example in the Portuguese-man-of-war. How 
long it has taken to decide between the “poly-organ 
theory” of Eschscholtz, Huxley, Muller, and Met- 
schnikoff, and the “poly-person theory” of Vogt, 
Leuckart, Kolliker, Gegenbaur, and Haeckel. The 
complex of reproductive processes in one such colony 
would still bear a life-time of research, and not be SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
19 
exhausted then. Who is able to trace out the reproduc- 
tive alternations and metamorphoses of such simple yet 
strange forms as the Dicyemids and Orthonectids, 
supposed by some, though probably erroneously, to 
stand as an intermediate group between the Protozoa 
and the Metazoa ? 
And when we descend to the Protozoa themselves, 
we find the reproductive cycles specialized in ways as 
varied as the forms of life. Then behind and under- 
lying the whole of this reproductive work, from Proto- 
phyte to Phanerogam, from Protozoa to man, are those 
intensely interesting phenomena of caryokinesis, which 
are at once the most varied and the most uniform ex- 
pression of reproductive energy that modern research 
has yet revealed. 
I need not dwell longer on this subject. We have 
not found the beginning of reproductive work, nor can 
we see an end either to its divisions or to the structural 
unities and divergencies correlated therewith. 
We might now turn to nutrition and sketch the gen- 
eral features of its specializations and coordinations; 
but we should only find the same principles illustrated 
in new directions, and might get weary without getting 
wiser. 
I will therefore at once try to bring the leading 
thought to a focus, and then very briefly point out its 
application. 
Division of labor is the principle underlying all or- 
ganic as well as all social progress. The development 
of the principle brings with it mutual dependence of 
the working units; and hence, every step in advance 
leads necessarily to that closer integration of the units 20 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
which merges their individualities into an individuality 
of a higher order. The tendency towards unity, as 
specialization advances is nowhere more strikingly illus- 
trated than in the progress from the lower to the higher 
segmented animals. In the lower annulose types, the 
individual represents a chain of segments or somites, 
which we may regard as so many individuals which 
have arisen as buds, one after the other, from before 
backwards, but have remained connected in the order 
of origin. These somites retain their individuality to 
such an extent that they are not killed by artificial 
separation, and indeed often undergo spontaneous 
fission. 
As we glance along the line of forms terminating in 
the Myriopods, the Crustaceans, the Insects, and the 
Arachnids, we find the individualities of the somites 
more and more subordinated to that of the chain they 
compose. There is a progressive consolidation, which, 
in its extreme phases, more or less completely obliterates 
the traces of articulation. The illustration might be 
extended to the vertebrates, but that would be needless. 
Let me add only, as one of the broadest conclusions to 
be drawn from such facts as we have been considering, 
that the grade of specialization attained in any group of 
organisms determines its rank in the scale of life and in- 
telligence. 
In each order of units, specialization seems to have 
its limit in the highest possible integration of its com- 
ponent elements. When this limit is reached, progress 
is arrested. The only way then open for advance lies 
in combining these units into units of a higher order. 
In this combination is given the possibility of a SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
21 
new system of specializations and integrations, with 
correspondingly high grades of life. The final stage of 
each order of units represents a complete individuality, 
which cannot be divided without destruction. So we 
advance from certain “ physiological units ” to the 
indivisible cell, from the cell to the indivisible organism 
composed of cells, from the highest units here to those 
of the social order. 
It is unnecessary to enlarge further upon these facts. 
It remains only to point out their bearing in relation 
to the biological sciences. 
The days when naturalists could presume to take all 
nature for a subject of study and meditation are a long 
way behind us. The cosmogonists of olden times en- 
gaged single-handed with all the mysteries of the 
universe. We honor them for their heroic efforts, 
ineffective as they were from misdirection. At the 
expense of centuries of baffled efforts, the lesson began 
at last to be learned, that division of the problem 
facilitates progress. That a knowledge of the whole 
presupposes a knowledge of the parts, was a simple 
enough fact; but it took a long time to turn it into 
practice. 
Division of labor in the sciences, as elsewhere, has 
been a thing of slow growth, self-originating, self-per- 
petuating, and self-regulating. It has taken possession 
of the biological sciences, and presides over their 
onward march, just as it determines and directs social 
and industrial progress. It is simply an economical 
principle, the growth of which began with, advances 
with, and will always have its limitations in, an actual 
need — the need of concentrated attention. This need 22 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
in turn has its limits in our power to improve the 
methods of investigation. The tendency, then, is regu- 
lated by the necessities and advantages of the investi- 
gator; and although we may not be able to fix definite 
limits to its growth, we are not the less certain that it 
has such limits, and that there is no danger either of a 
wholesale reaction or of our ever specializing to pieces. 
As in the organic and social worlds, so in the scientific, 
there are centripetal forces that keep pace with the 
centrifugal ones ; and the danger of any science flying 
into disconnected atoms is about as dreamy and remote 
as the dissolution of the earth itself. 
The movement in the direction of separation is gen- 
eral and, as it now seems to us, rapid. Cuvier thought 
that division of labor characterized the natural science 
of his day; but the movement was then in its earliest 
infancy. If you wish to know how extensive it has now 
become, you should look at the ponderous volumes of 
the “Zoological Record ” or the “Naples Jahresbericht.” 
When you reflect that it requires such massive volumes 
to record the bare titles and a brief abstract of the work 
of a single year, you realize how impossible it is for any 
one naturalist to cover the whole ground, or even to 
read the hundredth part of what his collaborators have 
to report. 
Naturalists then are no longer cosmogonists, but 
specialists. This being the fact, what is to be done 
in view of it? Where lies the remedy for every dan- 
ger of narrowness that may lurk in the tendency to 
specialize ? How is the range of vision to be kept 
free and broad while focussing attention on some one 
point of the field ? If one specialty absorbs our whole SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
23 
time and energy, how are we to keep its general bear- 
ings and relations in full view ? Will organization of 
any kind within our reach effect this ? If our special- 
ties are parts of a whole, then this whole must be 
representable by one or more modes of combination. 
That kind of organic association which permits each 
unit to work for itself while making it the servant of 
all the rest, must be a possibility. 
It must be evident to every one who is capable of 
understanding the situation, that union is just as essen- 
tial a part of the law of progress as division. If spe- 
cialization is a necessity, so is organization. But there 
is this difference between the tendencies, — that the 
one precedes the other and comes into recognition first. 
Specialization has already forced its way to the front, 
and is nearly everywhere recognized as a necessity; 
organization follows, but lags lamentably behind the 
needs of the times. 
The general principle of cooperation has long been 
at work. The naturalists of all countries are brought 
into cooperative relations through journals and other 
scientific publications. Every year multiplies these 
points of union, and draws the scattered workers into 
closer mutual dependence. Cut off these indispensable 
media of communication, and that unity of action on 
which progress now depends would at once come to 
an end. Of course the unity of action in so extended 
a body cannot be complete. Duplication of work will 
now and then occur, but the waste in this direction is 
fast becoming reduced to a minimum. 
The tendency to specialization is rapidly developing 
among our journals. This is seen especially in such 24 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
journals as the Zodlogischer Anzeiger; the Biologisches 
Centralblatt, the Anatomischer Anzeiger, the Journal 
of the Royal Mic. Soc., the Zeitschrift f wis. Mikros- 
kopie, &c. Manifestly all such specialization is led by 
the cooperative spirit. 
But it is not to the general tendency so much as to 
our own special need that I would now direct attention. 
We have now reached a point where our advance, both 
individually and collectively, depends, far more than 
ever before, upon the privileges, the opportunities, 
and the many peculiar advantages inherent in the prin- 
ciple of cooperative work. 
Among the ways of bringing together our scattered 
forces into something like organic union, the most 
important, and the most urgent at this moment, is 
that of a national marine biological station. Such an 
establishment, with a strong endowment, is unquestion- 
ably the great desideratum of American biology. There 
is no other means that would bring together so large 
a number of the leading naturalists of the country, and 
at the same time place them in such intimate helpful 
relations to one another. The larger the number of 
specialists working together, the more completely is the 
organized whole represented, and the greater and the 
more numerous the mutual advantages. 
Just consider what such an organization implies. It 
means, first of all, a permanent staff of investigators, 
with laboratories equipped for special research, and with 
facilities for extending observation to different points of 
our varied coast. It means boats, and all needful appli- 
ances for collecting, dredging, etc. It means a corps 
of trained collectors at the service of the investigators. SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION. 
25 
It means a comprehensive working library; ample 
funds for serial and monographical publications ; funds 
for travelling research; and resources for cooperative 
work with similar stations in other parts of the 
world. It means, further, all those important aids and 
accessories of investigation, such as conservators of 
material, assistants in microtomical and other mechan- 
ical work, skilled draughtsmen, photographers, lithog- 
raphers, and so on to the end of all the needs of 
such an organization. 
Create such conditions of work, and how biology 
would flourish. Specialization would characterize the 
individual members; but organization would dominate 
the aggregate. In place of the weakness of isolation, 
we should have all the power of union. There would be 
economy of time, money, service, physical and intellect- 
ual strength. The productive power of each individual 
would be intensified and augmented beyond calculation 
by that of every co-laborer; for while the units minis- 
tered to the whole, the power and influence of the whole 
would redound to the benefit of each. The difference 
between isolation and a union of this kind, is like 
that which separates the solitary cell from a highly de- 
veloped organism, or the nomadic aggregate from civ- 
ilized society. We need viva voce contact for incentive, 
for stimulation, for inspiration, and especially for main- 
taining that “moving equilibrium." of our specialized 
forces which constitutes progressive scientific life; and 
organization in the direction I have roughly indicated 
will accomplish all these ends. 
In conclusion, let me say that the establishment of 
such a station as I have sketched will probably never 26 
MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 
be effected through the unaided effort of any one per- 
son. But individual effort, though weak alone, has in 
the growing aggregate a cumulative power that often 
surprises expectation. Let every one feel, therefore, that 
his or her personal interest in the matter may be just 
what is required to make the combined effort of all 
effective in converting possibilities into actual realiza- 
tions, and in giving to specialization its consummation 
in organization.