THE BIOLOGY OF THE CELL SURFACE 



school of quantitative biology has done for us by over- 

 reaching facts and drawing unwarranted conclusions as to 

 the physical chemistry of vital phenomena. One method 

 used in this work is the " substitution of well-known physico- 

 chemical agents" for living components. But this substi- 

 tution is only that of a well-known physico-chemical agent 

 for another one. One need not be in complete ignorance 

 of this agent, i.e., the living cell, unless one takes pride in a 

 disdain for the knowledge accumulated by descriptive 

 studies. Not hindered by this knowledge one can easily 

 make great discoveries and, through fecund ignorance, per- 

 petuate error. And if, in addition, with a paucity of 

 mathematics, physics and chemistry one elaborates mathe- 

 matico-physico-chemical theories, then one by no means 

 wins what quantitative biology so much desires: namely, 

 security of biology, sitting at the right hand of physics. 

 Even those who have an adequate knowledge of physics 

 and chemistry and do appreciate the biological phenomena 

 which they aim to explain in terms of physics and chemistry, 

 should, (when at that point beyond which their data do 

 not warrant conclusions) honestly say: "However much 

 we desire to establish life as a mechanism, here our present 

 knowledge comes to its limits." It is sad irony that a 

 theory of vaunting mechanistic conceptions had, as its 

 basis, work the true value of which lay in establishing the 

 fact that the egg as a living cell is self-acting, self-regulating 

 and self-realizing — an independently irritable system. For 

 the spermatozoon, the theory's mechanistic conception is 

 more vitalistic than even the ardent vitalist could desire: 

 for it says that the living spermatozoon does what it does 

 only because it is alive. ^ 



The history of biological research furnishes us with other 

 examples which illustrate the short-comings of such physico- 



1 Loeb^ I.e. 



23S 



