POSTSCRIPT 



THE argument in favor of the organismal way of viewing 

 living nature has now run what appears to me its natural 

 course, to its inevitable end. Yet I cannot bring myself to 

 write "Finis" without making a few remarks which though 

 connected vitally with the argument, do not seem an essential 

 part of it. 



These remarks concern the general effect of the organismal 

 standpoint on those who may grasp it firmly and adopt it 

 unreservedly. Since, as pointed out in the "Historic Back- 

 ground" with which this book opens, the standpoint has been 

 recognized by biologists with varying degrees of fullness 

 from the time of Aristotle at least, there can be no doubt 

 that the human mind is naturally attuned, as one might say, 

 to this general type of response to organic phenomena. It 

 seems therefore fitting that a presentation like that which I 

 have made should be accompanied by a few words on the 

 probable influence of a wide prevalence of the organismal 

 view. The pertinent question will be asked, how could it 

 have come to pass that if the standpoint has been so long 

 in the world it should have missed full recognition and have 

 failed to exert its due influence? The reply is obvious to an 

 attentive reader of this book : At no time until the present 

 in the long historical growth of knowledge of the living world 

 has information been sufficient to make possible a rounded- 

 out statement of the conception. To illustrate, it is only in 

 the very last years that enough has been known of the 

 physical chemistry of the cell to engender such an interpre- 

 tation of this exceedingly important biological entity as that 

 which biochemists are just now reaching. Yet this interpre- 



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