THE BIOLOGY OF THE CELL SURFACE 



The physico-chemical biologists, however, do not picture 

 natural science as Heisenberg does. Rather, they visualize 

 the problems of the living organism as occupying a room in 

 a single apartment of the building of physics, that of 

 mechanics. Their view of physics, far more restricted than 

 that of physicists themselves, has therefore obfuscated both 

 the methodology and the philosophy of biology. This is 

 shown by their loose usage of the terms, mechanism, 

 mechanical, mechanistic and even machine, as though these 

 be interchangeable. 



In biology the term, mechanistic, is used as the antipode 

 of vitalistic. Since practise has legitimatized this usage, 

 there may be little reason to quarrel with it. Nevertheless 

 I wish to point out that the physico-chemical school of 

 biologists has erred in elevating the term, mechanistic, 

 beyond the meaning assigned it by physicists. By their 

 own doctrine the term should have the connotation assigned 

 it by physics. The true antipode of mechanistic is non- 

 mechanistic. The term, non-mechanistic, by no means 

 implies vitalism. Not every physicist who opposes the 

 mechanistic conception deems it necessary to support a 

 non-physical, super-natural concept. Rather, he holds 

 that the behavior of the ultimate particles of matter is not 

 rigidly determined, perfectly predictable. Logically, those 

 biologists who conceive vital processes as phenomena to be 

 interpreted by physics, should adhere to concepts of physics. 

 The physico-chemical biology should take cognizance of 

 the fact that physics has grown beyond "classical physics." 



Physico-chemical analysis into ultimate particles and 

 the hypotheses derived from such work establish the fact of 

 the existence of similarities between living and non-living. 

 By virtue of its peculiar organization In space as well as in 

 time, however, the living thing occupies a level in the 

 natural world above that of chemical compounds. From 

 this organization spring those characteristics by which we 



14 



