WHY WAS THIS THEORY NOT STATED BEFORE 249 



of the second half of the nineteenth century attached 

 to form and structure, to the neglect of causes save 

 for vague ones such as "function," "use," and "dis- 

 use." There was incessant and almost exclusive 

 appeal to comparative anatomy, embryology, and 

 paleontology — all morphological. 



Henry Fairfield Osborn finds: "The old paths of 

 research have led nowhere, and the question arises: 

 What lines shall new researches and experiments 

 follow?"^ Osborn urged an "energy conception" of 

 the origin and evolution of life. 



If one were asked today to state the trend in 

 biology, one could answer in a word: away from mor- 

 phology. Of course, the word "morphology" is used 

 in its obvious sense, as it has been used since Goethe 

 first coined the term ^'die MorpJiologie" \ for, cer- 

 tainly, it is true, and guaranteed by atomic physics, 

 that (as P. P. von Weimarn insists) amorphic chaos 

 can be found nowhere in "nature." 



Modern colloid chemistry has been making its 

 rapid strides only within the lifetime of the present 

 workers. Only within the last few years have de- 

 mands been made that it, one of the branches of 

 physical chemistry, be ranked as a separate science. 

 A German reviewer referred to Bechhold's Die Kol- 

 loide in Biologie und Medizin (English translation 



' The Origin and Evolution of Life, 10. 



