x VITALITY 185 



(c) The crowning attribute of life and the most 

 elusive is variability, the organism's power of producing 

 something new. In our present state of knowledge we 

 can throw some light on the manner in which certain 

 characters may be lost, or augmented, or rearranged, for 

 there are in the history of the germ-cells many oppor- 

 tunities for permutations and combinations of the here- 

 ditary constituents. But the origin of the distinctively 

 novel remains a mystery. Perhaps we must assume that 

 organisms are essentially creative. Even the inorganic 

 has a tendency to complexify ; a jortiori the organic. 

 The chemist is always turning out new carbon-com- 

 pounds, the organism is in its way an inventive chemist. 

 The same chemical substance can sometimes crystallise 

 in more than one way we know the variety of snow 

 crystals ; so, but with infinitely more subtlety, may the 

 germ-cell experiment with its own architecture and 

 trade with its environment adventurously. Just as an 

 intact organism, from the Amoeba to the Elephant, tries 

 experiments, so the germ-cell, which is no ordinary cell, 

 but an implicit organism, an individuality telescoped 

 down into a one cell phase of being, may make experi- 

 ments in self-expression, which we call variations or 

 mutations. Such at least is our personal view of a 

 great mystery. In any case, the fact of variability re- 

 mains as peculiarly distinctive of organisms. 



4. Organism and Mechanism. A chemical and physi- 

 cal description can be given of much that goes on in the 

 living body, and many great discoveries in physiology 

 have been made by applying chemical and physical 

 methods to the study of processes that occur in organisms. 

 This kind of description, which is often called mechanical, 

 will certainly continue to extend its scope, and every 

 biologist wishes it well. 



It seems, however, to many biologists that chemical 

 and physical description is inadequate to answer the 

 distinctively biological questions, that it does not cover 

 the characteristic facts of life, that it is more useful in 

 giving an account of a deposit or perhaps an eddy than 

 in interpreting the flow of the stream. 



