AMPHISBAENA 197 



ages. There goes a deep crack through our porcelain world; and 

 even theoretical physics, perhaps the most highly developed 

 science, feels, I am told, much malaise and intellectual discom- 

 fort. Could it be that molecular biology is the last refuge of the 

 scientific optimist? 



y: 

 Well, we have much to be optimistic about. This has been a 

 marvelous period for the biological sciences, a true renaissance. 

 We have learned more about life and heredity in the last five 

 years than in the preceding fifty; and for this reason we can 

 afford to disregard most of the older literature. Even you, who 

 has difficulty in reconciUng yourself to all our discoveries, will 

 not be able to deny the tremendous upsurge. 



o: 

 There is so much to get reconciled to. In fact, that such very bad 

 times as ours have given rise to so much good science, does this 

 not speak against science? 



y: 



Not at all. You seem to have the romantically foolish idea that 

 only a good man can be a good scientist. 



o: 



It is always dangerous to use the argument ad hominem, and you 

 should not judge from yourself. But is it not a desperate situation 

 when an old proverb must be reversed to read: Wherever the 

 fish stinks there is its head? It is getting late, though, and I had 

 not quite finished with what I was saying before. Even if the 

 correct code is found and the flow^of so-called information takes 

 place as postulated by the admirers of biological automation, very 

 little of what occurs in a living cell is really clarified. What 

 determines the specific character of a cell, which is perpetuated 

 in a hereditary fashion, is constituted of a very large number of 

 different compounds, many of them situated specifically within 

 the cell; and these substances, once we break the cell and isolate 



