THE ORIGIN OF LIVING MATTER 535 



ical character in a living system. Kant and Singer accept 

 both of these viewpoints yet recognize that they are of two 

 distinct kinds of classes (classes of classes), or universes of dis- 

 course, which cross at one point where, therefore, they are not 

 incompatible. 



We might view the matter in this light: A sundial, an hour- 

 glass, and a clock are quite different types of mechanical sys- 

 tems, yet all have one function; at this point they meet. As 

 mechanisms they are quite distinct; as timepieces, they are 

 members of the same functional class. The point at which 

 they meet is nonmechanistic, for a function is not mechanical. 

 Thus, life as a physical and chemical system is mechanical. Its 

 individual parts we can understand. As a living functional 

 system, it is nonmechanical. Its whole we cannot understand. 



The whole as an entity and its function as a property depend 

 upon an arrangement of parts which is organization. To this 

 fundamental property of living (and nonliving) matter we return 

 again and again. The mechanism is what it is because of the 

 way in which its parts are put together. Organization is charac- 

 teristic of all functional systems, and as such it is as much an 

 entity as are matter and energy. 



In our enthusiasm for a generally acceptable philosophy of 

 the physical basis of life, we must not exaggerate the property 

 of organization by elevating it to a position far above that of 

 other properties. In a sense, organization is above them all, 

 but it is still within this world. Among the ablest of biologists 

 of vitalistic belief is the English physiologist J. S. Haldane. He 

 shows very well how the concept of organization or coordinated 

 activity is so essential a part of every living thing. In criticiz- 

 ing a treatise wherein blood is regarded as a physicochemical 

 system (which it certainly is), he called attention, as did Claude 

 Bernard, to the important fact that the blood of a Uving animal 

 is kept remarkably constant in its properties by the influence 

 of the organs of the body upon it, it, in turn, maintaining coordi- 

 nation between the organs. He adds that to disregard the 

 principle of coordination is to disregard all that is characteristic 

 of life and that a study of blood apart from the body is not a 

 study in physiology but only a study in physical chemistry. 

 Now, Haldane is right when he says that to ignore coordination 

 is to ignore one of the most fundamental principles of life; but 



