GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 2/9 



counted for as the sum total of the properties of the atoms of carbon, 

 hydrogen, and oxygen of which the molecule is made up, so the prop- 

 erties of the organism are connected with its whole organization and 

 are not simply those of its individual cells, or lower units. 



The strongest evidence in favor of this view is found in the 

 behavior of small pieces of an egg, or of a protozoon, or even of a 

 many-celled organism. A lower limit of organization is very soon 

 reached, below which the piece fails to produce the characteristic 

 form, although all the necessary elements are present in the piece to 

 produce the entire structure. The size of these pieces is enormously 

 large as compared with the size of the cell, or of the imaginary ele- 

 ments of Nageli, Weismann, Wiesner, etc. These results indicate 

 that the organization is a comparatively large structure. 



A few writers have either ignored the presence of smaller units, 

 or have dealt with the organism from a purely chemical and physical 

 point of view. They attempt to account for the changes in the 

 organism as the outcome of known physical and chemical princi- 

 ples. It must, of course, be granted that in a sense the properties 

 of the organism are the result of the material basis of the organism ; 

 but in another sense this idea gives a false conception of the 

 phenomena of life, because, if we were simply to bring together those 

 substances that we suppose to be present in the organism we have no- 

 reason to think that they would form an organism, or show the 

 characteristic reactions of living things. Even from a chemical point 

 of view we can see how this result could not be expected, for it is 

 well known that the order in which a compound is built up, i.e. the 

 way in which the atoms or molecules are introduced into the structure, 

 is an important factor in the making of the compound. When we re- 

 member the immense period of time during which the organisms living 

 at present have been forming, we can appreciate how futile it will be 

 to attempt to explain the behavior of the organism from the little we 

 know in regard to its chemical composition. Its chief properties 

 are the result of its peculiar structure, or the way in which its ele- 

 ments are grouped. This structure has resulted from the vast num- 

 ber of influences to which the organism has been subjected, and 

 while it may be granted that if we could artificially reproduce these 

 conditions an organism having all the properties that we associate 

 with living things would result, yet the problem appears to be so 

 vastly complicated that few workers would have the courage to 

 attempt to accomplish the feat of making artificially such a structure. 

 To prevent misunderstanding, it may be added that while from the 

 point of view here taken, we cannot hope to explain the behavior 

 of the organism as the resultant of the substances that we obtain 

 from it by chemical analysis (because the organism is not simply 



