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In the last ten years, however, the whole rage in biology has been the cell surface, especially in cancer research. It is being seen today as Just saw it half a century ago--as what regulates what goes in and out of the cell . . . . The cell surface, as the mediator between the cell and its environment . . . . [pgs. 29-31]
He saw in the nucleus an expression of the tendency to fixity, rigidity, and resistance to change: "This tendency aids to preserve individual integrity which hands over in tact from generation to generation the character of the organism." The extoplasm expressed for Just the tendency toward change: "On the other side, the living thing is highly mobile, changing with every change in the environment, accommodating itself and thus evincing capacity for self-regulation. In the protoplasmic system the ectoplasm is the region of active momentary changes in response to environmental conditions.
The cell surface, as the mediator between the cell and its environment, came to hold an almost spiritual fascination for Just. Here was to be found not only an explanation for such fundamental processes as fertilization and embryonic development, but perhaps also an answer to the mysteries of heredity and evolution. Life, Just felt, could not be "only a struggle against the surroundings from which life came." It must be a form of cooperation. He adopted the theory of the Russian anarchist philosopher Prince Peter Kropoti, who believed mutual aid and cooperation to be the fundamental fact of the biological world - a view that Just found preferable to the post-Darwinian idea of a struggle for existence . . . . " [p. 28]" [ Ernest Everett Just- [The Biology of the Cell Surface and Basic Methods for Experiments on Eggs of Marine Animals] - ["The Greatest Problem in American Biology." Grantham, Shelby. In Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Vol. 76, No. 3. Hanover, New Hampshire: November 1983.]
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