LIFE AND EXPERIMENT 



chemical analysis, as that postulated by Loeb, is applied, 

 the living thing disappears and only a mere agglomerate of 

 parts remains. The better this analysis proceeds and the 

 greater its yield, the more completely does life vanish from 

 the investigated living matter. The state of being alive 

 is like a snowflake on a window-pane which disappears 

 under the warm touch of an inquisitive child. 



This objection to the so-called physico-chemical point 

 of view — i.e., that the goal of biology is the reduction of 

 living matter to ultimate particles — is far more potent 

 than those mentioned before. Certainly, it would still 

 remain were the physicists able to state their concepts of the 

 ultimate particles of matter in final terms. Though com- 

 pounded of the same elements found elsewhere in nature and 

 showing physical properties because of this composition, 

 though amenable to physico-chemical laws, the living thing 

 is refractory to analysis into ultimate particles. 



Here Heisenberg may be quoted to show how we can 

 conceive the particular realm of living things as part of 

 the natural world and the natural sciences: 



If for instance one thinks of the problems which are con- 

 nected with the existence of living organisms, one will 

 suppose, from the point of view of modern physics, that the 

 powers which act in the organisms limit themselves in a like 

 manner that is rationally exactly perceptible, from the 

 purely physical laws, as, for example, thermodynamics 

 limits itself from classic mechanics. . . . The building of 

 natural science therefore most probably can not become a 

 continuous unit, so that simply by following the prescribed 

 way one can come from one point in it to all the other rooms 

 of the building. Rather, the building is made up of single 

 parts, each of which though standing in manifold relations 

 to the others, nevertheless is a unit that is in itself complete. 

 The step from already completed parts of the building to a 

 newly discovered one or to one to be constructed demands 

 always a mental action which can not be performed simply 

 by developing farther that which already exists. ^ 



^ Heisenberg, 1934. 



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