20 The Unity of the Organism 



be so noxious to scientific biology we shall point out later. 



Finally, to bring our historical survey to the present 

 hour, brief reference must be made to the form the contro- 

 versy has assumed in its very latest stage. To show that 

 the Mendelian-unit-character-factorial-chromosomal theory 

 of heredity has become thoroughly permeated by the elemen- 

 talistic philosophy will be one of the cardinal aims of some 

 of our critical chapters. This philosophy more than the in- 

 trinsic importance of the objective discoveries is what has 

 aroused the imagination and enthusiasm and stimulated the 

 activity of geneticists, as the new school of investigators of 

 sexual reproduction call themselves. Reference to this lat- 

 est phase of biological elementalism cannot serve the future 

 in any better way, I think, than by calling attention to the 

 remarkable illustration furnished by these late developments 

 of the narrowing power of elementalistic philosophy. 



A calm and just judgment of what the strongest motive 

 in philosophical biology is to-day, would be that it is a firm 

 belief that the most imjDortant problems of the whole living 

 world are centered in — what? Sex-cells.'^ No, not even in 

 entities thus large and complex ; but in a few minute and 

 relatively simple fractions or parts of these cells, the chro- 

 mosomes ! 



Viewed broadly both as to historical development and 

 factual content, we are warranted in being confident of the 

 triumph of the organismal standpoint at a day not far dis- 

 tant, this confidence being warranted largely by the fact 

 that it seems as though elementalism has run nearly its 

 whole natural course. It has consumed all the material there 

 is for it to live on, as one may say. It is now engaged in 

 trying out the very last portion of the organism as the 

 "seat" or ultimate explanation of life phenomena. This 

 judgment of the situation becomes especially cogent if the 

 broadly generic term "chemical substances", be put in the 

 place of "hereditary substance" or "genes" which are imag- 



