INTRODUCTION 



assembled both in space and in time, its investigation is 

 limited. The direct analysis of the state of being alive 

 must never go below the order of organization which charac- 

 terizes life; it must confine itself to the combination of 

 compounds in the life-unit, never descending to single com- 

 pounds and, therefore, certainly never below these. 

 Whereas physical science has to do finally with ultimate 

 units of matter, the scope of biological research embraces 

 the behavior of more heterogeneous combinations of these 

 units. The physicist aims at the least, the indivisible, 

 particle of matter. The study of the state of being alive is 

 confined to that organization which is peculiar to it. It 

 may be that life can never be written as a formula because 

 it may be a physics and chemistry in a new dimension which, 

 though superimposed upon the now known physics and 

 chemistry, lies in an infinity which the human mind can 

 not ever embrace — as a tone which theoretically we know 

 exists but which the human ear can never hear. But be 

 this as it may, life as an event lies in a combination of 

 chemical stuffs exhibiting physical properties; and it is in 

 this combination, i.e., its behavior and activities, and in it 

 alone that we can seek life. A living thing represents in 

 its unit of structure and behavior the highest order of com- 

 plexity in nature. All this implies that the method 

 employed in the investigation of a living thing can not be 

 identical with that used in physical sciences. 



With right we glorify refined and precise measurements — ■ 

 great accomplishments in the physical sciences rest upon 

 them. The desire to extend their use to embrace the science 

 of living things is understandable; nevertheless, quantita- 

 tive measurements can never be used in biology to the 

 extent that they are used in physics. 



To be sure biology also employs measurements. He who 

 studies the living animal or plant often has recourse, most 

 of the time entirely unconsciously, to the estimation of 



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