II. THE FINE-STRUCTURE OF PROTOPLASM 



The great conquests in the field of structural chemistry have been real- 

 ized by means of analysis and synthesis. Analysis provides information 

 about the structural units and, with the aid of synthesis, their position 

 in the molecule is determined. Although no inner relationship seems 

 to exist between chemistry and morphology, i.e., between our know- 

 ledge of matter and that of shape, this same procedure has been the 

 method of research in morphology : detecting the structural units by 

 analysis and determining their mutual position. The latter can be done 

 by direct means both in the macroscopic and the microscopic domain 

 and thus has no need of the indirect methods used in organic chem- 

 istry. 



However, for the elucidation of the invisible submicroscopic struc- 

 ture of protoplasm, in so far as it is not yet accessible to electron 

 microscopy, analysis must again be combined with some kind of 

 synthesis. It is true that this is not a matter of synthesis in the sense 

 of organic chemistry. We can do no more than unite the structural 

 units obtained by analysis in a scheme which enables us to explain the 

 optical and physico-chemical properties of protoplasm. Because of the 

 exceedingly complicated state of the inner morphologic structure of 

 living matter, only a very incomplete solution of the problem is 

 possible in this way. 



In this situation one might be tempted to abandon the wearisome 

 road of analysis and synthesis and simply accept protoplasm as a given 

 substance. This is, however, impossible for morphology as a branch 

 of the exact sciences. For, so long as there are possibilities of research, 

 morphology must from an inner necessity continue the analysis of 

 living matter — even the sacredness of the human body failed 

 as a taboo in former times. It is only when all the possibilities of 

 analytic dissection which the human mind places at its disposal 

 have been exhausted, that morphology will bow in awe to the secrets 

 of nature. 



