6o4 THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



that has found lively support in many quarters. He calls it "cellular physi- 

 ology" and bases it, as its name implies, on the doctrine of the cell as the 

 unit of life, which he maintains repeatedly, and with greater emphasis than 

 anyone else has done, against all theories of smaller, independent entities, 

 such as Altmann's granula. To him the body is exclusively a cell-state; the 

 formation and co-operation of the organs have little interest for him and are 

 dealt with only in passing; Roux's name is mentioned as little as Mendel's 

 even in the most recent edition of his Allgememe Physiologie. He chiefly oc- 

 cupies himself with the living substance and its nature. And though he has 

 removed from this field of research those hypothetical life-units of a mechan- 

 ical kind that played such a large part in the theories of his predecessors 

 and contemporaries, he has nevertheless reverted to the same unworkable 

 imaginative system of thought, although on different grounds; that is to 

 say, he has imagined a chemical unit of life of an albuminoid character, 

 which he terms "biogen," whose chief characteristic apparently consists 

 in an extreme chemical lability: a constant and simultaneous alternation of 

 disintegration and reconstruction. In this chemical change consists, accord- 

 ing to Verworn, the true essence of life; there is no difference between ani- 

 mate and inanimate except that which is brought about by the extraordinary 

 metabolistic possibilities of the biogen molecule. Verworn, it is true, admits 

 that the biogen is really as hypothetical as plastidules or micellx ever were, 

 but he has the same weakness as other speculative biologists for allowing 

 hypothesis, when it is once completed, to stand for fact. It is a more serious 

 matter, however, that the biogen cannot be reconciled with modern biochem- 

 istry; the latter' s representatives have fairly unanimously condemned the 

 whole hypothesis, maintaining that there exists no other albumen molecule 

 than that which is already known to general chemistry. "There is no such 

 thing as dead and living albumen any more than there is dead and living 

 sugar or fat, and the reactional powers of the protoplasm depend upon the 

 co-operation of its various component parts in definite proportions" (Hober). 

 Verworn, however, paid no heed to these objections, especially as modern 

 biochemistry did not interest him in the least; he makes no mention of the 

 progress of colloid chemistry, but instead discusses the old problem as to 

 whether plasm is solid or fluid. 



Verworn s conditionism 

 On the whole, then, Verworn went his own way, heedless of the progress 

 of contemporary science; he had made it a principle, one of his biographers 

 relates, not to read too much, but to think for himself. He was, moreover, 

 of an ardent disposition; ethical and social questions interested him keenly, 

 and every new-year's eve he ceremoniously inaugurated the coming year's 

 work by sitting down at his writing-desk at the stroke of twelve. Having 

 such a temperament he was naturally inclined to indulge in philosophical 



