PAR THENOGENESIS 



chemical approach in setting up a singly studied property 

 of living matter as synonymous with the whole complex 

 of life-processes. Witness the theories of oxidation, per- 

 meability, electrical conductivity, viscosity and the like. 

 These all have failed; they leave untouched the cardinal 

 problem of biology, the structure of a living thing; they do 

 not relate themselves to the organization which distin- 

 guishes a living thing from a non-living. Or take the almost 

 universal fashion in which Hill's work on nerve-conduction 

 was accepted. By "proving" that a nerve conducts without 

 heat-loss this work must logically lead to the conclusion 

 that the nerve-fibre is not living since it gives no evidence 

 of metabolism. Strictly orthodox morphologists have like- 

 wise often presented theories of life-processes on the basis of 

 demonstrations that only emphasize anew the capacity 

 of the living thing though debased to respond according to 

 its specific and intrinsic irritability. The now perfect 

 collapse of the organizator theory is a case in point: all 

 that remains of it is a name for the well-known power of 

 protoplasm to respond in the same characteristic, struc- 

 tural and physiological manner to diverse stimuli.^ 



True, terms, as inherent irritability and response to 

 stimuli, are more general than any one denominating a 

 physico-chemical attribute named above, or than the term, 

 organizator, even. But the present state of our knowledge 

 of protoplasmic response does not yet permit the use of 

 more specific terms with reference to the behavior peculiar 

 to matter organized in the living state. The reproach that 

 one retards progress by use of too general terms carries no 

 serious onus so long as we have not progressed far enough 

 to warrant the employment of precise physico-chemical 

 formulation. 



^ As an example, cf. Just, 1936c: here ati egg responds zvith the 

 same structural change to most diverse experimental means. 



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