84 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



we have merely lessened our ignorance concerning the single ani- 

 mal. It had the property of behaving in a certain way in a society; 

 we did not discover that property until the individual was associ- 

 ated with other animals. For any biological evolution of a society, 

 we shall have to look to its individual members. It is their germ 

 cells, their genes, their mutations, their recombinations of genes, 

 their survivals, which make a society change or not and cause it to 

 survive or perish. Society may be good; if it is, it will help its indi- 

 vidual members, and they will preserve or promote the society.* 



Some biologists, notably Ludwig von Bertalanffy, ap- 

 proach this and all others problems in biology through a 

 concept of "organization and wholeness considered as prin- 

 ciples of order." According to Bertalanffy: 



It is not only necessary to carry out analysis in order to know as 

 much as possible about the individual components, but it is equally 

 necessary to know the laws of organization that unite these parts 

 and partial processes and are just the characteristic of vital phe- 

 nomena. Herein lies the essential and original object of biology. It 

 calls for investigation at all levels: at the level of the physico-chemi- 

 cal units, processes, and systems; at the biological level of the cell 

 and the multicellular organism; at the level of the supra-individual 

 units of life.j 



* By permission from F. A. Shull, Evolution, 2d ed. (New York: Mc- 

 Graw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1951), p. 275. 



t Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Problems of Life (New York: John Wiley 

 & Sons, Inc., 1952), p. 20. 



