CHAPTER 4 



The Chemistry and Function of Nucleoproteins 

 and Nucleic Acids'^ 



1. INTRODUCTION 



The progress in our knowledge of the chemistry and biology of 

 the nucleic acids has been truly enormous in the last seven or 

 eight years. As is customary in the natural sciences, the first con- 

 ception and formulation of the problems soon was followed by 

 the invention of the technical means required for their solution; 

 and thereupon ensued an avalanche of papers of which some 

 were important and more were trivial. 



As there has appeared recently a very comprehensive treatise 

 on the nucleic acids, which attempts to take stock of our present 

 knowledge^, there would be little sense in my engaging in a 

 swimming contest with a leviathan. Hence, instead of citing much 

 literature I shall refer, wherever possible, to the pertinent chap- 

 ters of this book. 



In the biological sciences, as in many others, we are faced at 

 present with a silent struggle between those believing in first 

 causes and looking for a teleological foundation of all occur- 

 rences and those who think that macrocosm and microcosm are 

 governed by laws of probability. The clash between these two 

 schools has found an epigrammatic expression in the anecdote 

 relating a remark that Einstein is said to have made about the 

 uncertainty principle. "But the Good Lord does not throw 

 dice!" — a statement, I should hke to add parenthetically, that 

 itself severely restricts His omnipotence, since there is no earthly 



* Reprinted with permission from Rend. ist. lombardo sci. Pt. I, 89 

 (1955) 101-115. 



