108 The Unity of the Organism 



nature of the subject matter with which they are occupied. 

 Descriptive zoology and botany are to become chemical in 

 part, and the chemistry of organisms is to become zoological 

 and botanical in part. Each science is to supplement, 

 and reciprocally to be supplemented by the other far more 

 essentially than has hitherto been the case. In one of its 

 aspects biochemistry will become a branch of systematic 

 zoology and botany, just as biology in one of its depart- 

 ments, is already a branch of chemistry. Although such a 

 state of things is very far from full realization, that the 

 movement is in tliis direction seems unmistakable. Tlie con- 

 ception that animals and plants as producers of chemical 

 substances, and that each kind if not each individual is to 

 some extent a producer of different substances is receiving 

 new confirmation all the time. 



When we pass from the primary task of identifying and 

 describing the chemical substances produced by different 

 animals and plants to that of gaining an insight into the 

 methods by wliicli these substances are produced; when, in 

 otlier words, we pass from the problems of What to those 

 of How, the vast complexity and uniqueness not only of the 

 chemical operations of organisms as distinguished from 

 non-organisms, but as well the uniqueness, within limits, of 

 these operations come even more impressively into view. A 



hensiveness and of refinement in some directions of the chemist's descrip- 

 tions receives striking iUustration in this very book "The Organism 

 as a Whole." Restricting his consideration of the chemical bases of 

 species to the evidence drawn from laboratory experimentation, Loeb 

 writes: "Ford claims to have obtained proof that a glucoside contained 

 in the poisonous mushroom Amanita i)h(tJJokles can act as an antigen. 

 But aside from this one fact we know that proteins and only proteins 

 can act as antigens and are therefore the bearers of the specificity of 

 living organisms." (p. (i.'i). Exactly what is meant by "bearers of the 

 specificity of organisms" no one knows, but if the assertion implies, as 

 it seems to, that all such dift'erences are due exclusively to proteins, it 

 is contrary to a vast array of indubitable facts of natural history. Dif- 

 ferential otlors and flavors, for example, as dwelt upon above, are 

 certainly not all, probably not usually, proteid in nature. 



