18 



THE CELL AND PROTOPLASM 



With increasing knowledge of the finer or- 

 ganization of living matter it is only nat- 

 ural, but probably futile, to look for the 

 vital properties in these smaller and 

 smaller parts. Haeckel assigned the pecu- 

 liar properties of life to the carbon atom; 

 Buchner's famous dictum, "Ohne Phos- 

 phor kein Gedanke," seems to identify 

 mental phenomena with phosphorus. I 

 once heard the physicist, A. E. Dolbear 

 (1895), suggest that the immortal soul 

 could be safely lodged in an immortal 

 atom.® Unfortunately for this idea the 

 atoms are no longer immortal, even if one 

 were large enough to furnish a home for 

 the soul. Recently several physicists and 

 biologists have suggested that phenomena 

 of automatism, freedom, and creativity, so 

 characteristic of many living beings, may 

 be derived from the uncertainty principle 

 jij of Heisenberg as found in electrons. All 

 h; such proposals involve the error that the 

 |.! properties of the whole are to be found in 

 its constituent parts, or that the whole is 

 no greater than the sum of its parts. Whit- 

 man pointed out this error as regards the 

 totipotence of cells in his thoughtful paper 

 on "The Inadequacy of the Cell Theory of 

 Development" (1893), and it could now be 

 extended to the inadequacy of the indepen- 

 dent gene theory of heredity or the more 

 extreme view which regards genes as 

 "units of life," or to the atomic or elec- 

 tronic theories of life. 



Attempts have been made to explain the 

 constitution of cells and protoplasm as a 

 symbiotic union of a swarm of the smallest 

 living things. In 1890, Altmann main- 

 tained that the granules which we now call 

 mitochondria are elementary organisms 

 like bacteria. Wallin maintained a similar 

 view, in 1930, in his book on "Symbionti- 

 cism." The sharp distinction between nu- 

 cleus and cytoplasm led certain cytologists, 

 among them Boveri and Watase, to suggest 

 that nucleus and cytoplasm may be symbi- 

 onts in the cell. Others, recognizing that 

 nuclei are built up from self -perpetuating 

 chromosomes, chromomeres and chromioles, 



6 " If mind itself requires a material habitat 

 then it has in an atom an imperishable living 

 home. ' ' 



have regarded these as the elementary or- 

 ganisms or symbionts (Minchin 1915). 

 Unfortunately for all such speculations 

 there is no evidence that any of these cell 

 constituents are capable of independent 

 existence. So far as now known some of 

 the micrococci are the smallest living things 

 capable of cultivation as independent or- 

 ganisms. It is probable that they, like 

 larger bacteria, contain chromatin granules 

 (chromioles) and plasma, or elements of 

 both nucleus and cytoplasm, and that they 

 have the properties of assimilation, growth 

 and division. But there is no evidence that 

 these functions are located in either chromi- 

 oles or plasma separately. Rather, these 

 vital functions appear to be the results of 

 the coordination and cooperation of these 

 constituents, and when other vital functions 

 appear in higher organisms they are not to 

 be regarded as the distinctive contribution 

 of some particular substance or unit that 

 has been added to the complex, but rather 

 as the results of the organization and co- 

 operation of all the constituent parts. Life 

 is not found in atoms or molecules or genes 

 as such, hut in organization; not in sym- 

 biosis but in synthesis. 



The origin of cellular and protoplasmic 

 organization is a vast problem upon which 

 science has scarcely made a beginning, but 

 once this organization or combination of 

 constituent parts has been achieved, the 

 fundamental properties of life emerge. 

 Once the organization of the germ cells is 

 established and is brought into proper re- 

 lation with the environment, development 

 results. Here in mere outline is a possible 

 mechanism for the origin of life, for the in- 

 creasing complexities of structures and 

 functions in development, for the evolution 

 of the million species of living things. 



The mystery of mysteries is not the 

 mechanism of evolution, but the evolution 

 of the mechanism by which cells and proto- 

 plasm came to have the organization that 

 has resulted in "the promise and potency 

 of all life." This is the great problem 

 which is sure to occupy increasingly the 

 attention of biologists in the future. Prom 

 our mere beginnings in the study of cells 

 and protoplasm we confidently look for- 



