other lines of inquiry, the so-called Mendelian experiments promise
to clear up much that is at present dark.

The development of the individual that results from such cell-union
is no mere mixture or addition, but a process of selective organization.
To put it very absurdly, one does not find a pair of two-legged parents
having a child with legs as big as the two sets of legs together, or
with four legs, two of them of one shape and two of another. In other
words, of the possibilities contributed by the father and mother, some
are taken and some are left in the case of any one child. Further,
different children will represent different selections from amongst
the germinal elements. Mendelism, by the way, is especially concerned
to find out the law according to which the different types of
organization are distributed between the offspring. Each child,
meanwhile, is a unique individual, a living whole with an organization
of its very own. This means that its constituent elements form a system.
They stand to each other in relations of mutual support. In short,
life is possible because there is balance.

This general state of balance, however, is able to go along with a
lot of special balancings that seem largely independent of each other.
It is important to remember this when we come a little later on to
consider the instincts. All sorts of lesser systems prevail within
the larger system represented by the individual organism. It is just
as if within the state with its central government there were a number
of county councils, municipal corporations, and so on, each of them
enjoying a certain measure of self-government on its own account. Thus
we can see in a very general way how it is that so much variation is
possible. The selective organization, which from amongst the germinal
elements precipitates ever so many and different forms of fresh life,