Abstract
From the structural point of view mitosis is a process by which a living cell, through continuous and orderly transformations, divides so that (a) in equational division each daughter cell duplicates the mother cell exactly at the latter's comparable stage of existence; or (b) in ontogenetic division each daughter cell duplicates the mother cell at the latter's comparable stage of existence, exactly in chromatin content, but not necessarily exactly in any other detail.
From the dynamical point of view mitosis is a process related and characterized as follows: Beginning in a single living cell at a stage of high metabolic activity but of divisional stability thence continuing by means of metabolism to a condition of low metabolic activity and divisional instability the mitotic potential is established. Thence reactions still proceed by virtue of the cell's self-contained structural and chemical organization, and its environmental complex. These successive reactions are so timed, localized, and successively interdependent upon their preceding and adjacent activities, that in equational division mitotic stability and metabolic activity are again achieved only when this self-contained process-chain of reactions reaches a stage wherein are found, in place of one cell, two cells, which if the division be equational are exact duplicates of the one parent cell at the same stage. If, however, the mitosis be ontogenetic the daughter cells will exactly resemble the parent cell at the latter's comparable stage in chromatin content only; their cytoplasmic form and functions may vary greatly.
The structural stages and ends of the mitotic process have been analyzed much more thoroughly than have the dynamical. The analysis of the latter seeks not to find form but to explain what is happening in terms of interplay of forces. It should yield even greaterreturns in understanding vital and evolutionary phenomena.
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