378 THE BIOLOGY OF STENTOR 



cellular organisms. Therefore, in any experiment we perform today 

 we do not have to demonstrate the origin of life by reducing the 

 results to molecules and their interactions, for pattern is always 

 there to start with. This pattern factor may have undreamed of 

 capabilities, itself constituting a primary determinate of what kind 

 of molecules are synthesized in association with it and how they 

 behave, for example, in contributing to growth or increase in that 

 pattern. 



These patterns would be in one sense "of molecules"; in pre- 

 cisely this sense, that the organism is obviously reducible to a 

 collection of identifiable molecules after chemical treatment and 

 destruction in a test tube. This would explain why organisms in 

 their functions and even in their forms are very definitely and 

 sometimes grossly affected by the presence of certain types of 

 molecules. Even a single ion like lithium exerts great influence on 

 morphogenesis in both embryos and stentors. For if the patterns 

 are ''made up of molecules" the kinds of molecules and ions 

 available would clearly have a substantial effect on these patterns. 

 The patterns themselves could have just as much influence in the 

 formation and behavior of the molecules. There is some evidence, 

 for instance, that the molecules we analyze in the test tube do not 

 exist as such in the organism (see Needham, 1933). Picric acid is 

 said to precipitate proteins in solution but not when injected into 

 amoebas, and sea urchin eggs do not show the characteristic 

 ultraviolet absorption spectrum of proteins until they are killed. 



From these considerations it follows that pattern and substance 

 are two irreducible aspects of the organism. They may be related 

 in the sense of Neils Bohr's principle of complementarity, as he 

 has himself suggested (1958). 



It would appear, therefore, that our greatest lack and most 

 fruitful opportunity in biology lies in conceiving and testing the 

 nature and capabilities of persistent supramolecular patterns. For 

 this task stentors should be highly appropriate because they 

 present us with a visible cortical geometry as an empirical reality, 

 and stentors as the most operable of all cells have already shown 

 how important this pattern is in determining form and cyto- 

 differentiation. 



Any indication, however general, of the possible nature of basic 

 cortical patterns in ciliates and in eggs should help in transcending 



