THE CATALYST ENTELECHY IN DIFFERENTIATION 193 



tion and other Gordian knots of embryology may be cut by the versatile 

 sword of a physico-chemically dominated catalyst entelechy. 



We now consider the four classes of transmissible catalyst 

 changes before mentioned. 



(1) Gene Mutation 



Professor Richard Goldschmidt devotes a large portion of his 

 book "Physiological Genetics" to "The Mutated Gene and the 

 Potentialities of Development." At the outset he states: 



"One of the basic facts of genetics is, then, that the action of the gene 

 in controlling the development of hereditary traits cannot be studied 

 directly but may only be extrapolated from the knowledge of the action 

 of a mutant gene: the existence of the normal or +-gene is only inferred 

 from the existence of a mutant allelomorph showing Mendelian be- 

 havior. The action of the mutant gene is a different one from the 

 assumed action of the +-gene; i.e., the mutant gene must control or 

 produce a deviation in a series of developmental processes leading to 

 the visible character. Development ... is ... a process of extraor- 

 dinary precision . . . the possibilities of changing the details of 

 developmental processes without injuring the proper cooperation of 

 those processes are rather limited. . . . But certain processes may be 

 changed without deleterious consequences; and if this is done by a 

 genetic change, we call it a mutation." 



Professor Theodosius Dobzhansky 24 states: "For the time being the 

 term mutation subsumes a variety of phenomena. In a wide sense, 

 any change in the genotype which is not due to recombination of 

 Mendelian factors is called a mutation. In the narrower sense, it is 

 a presumed change in a single gene, a Mendelian variant which is not 

 known to represent a chromosomal aberration." 



From our point of view a gene mutation is an intraparticulate 

 change (chemical or physical) which results in outwardly directed 

 changes in the gene's electronic fields of force, sufficient to alter 

 its catalytic activities. Conceivably, this could be brought about 

 by intramolecular change, by a change in molecular orientation, 

 or by electroversion. 25 Where a genie unit (molecule, macro- 

 molecule, or aggregate) changes its contacts, as in cases of chromo- 

 somal translocations, inversion, deletion, or crossing-over, a new 

 catalytically effective surface may be formed at the new zone of 

 contact with other genes or with the milieu, as the case may be. 

 The so-called "position effect" in genetics can be thus accounted 



