APPENDIX 419 



is a venture doomed apparently beforehand to defeat, for it takes us "back 

 again to the most ancient beaches of human controversy, strewn with the 

 wreckage of all man's early and late attempts to launch a religion, or a 

 philosophy, that will stand the test of experience. 



And all these mournful wrecks are jealously guarded by marooned 

 mariners of hope, and their beach-combing followers, who show no mercy 

 to intruders. But modern science, which has wisely built on firmer, though 

 drier ground, must ultimately extend the foundations of all of her out- 

 housings down to the low water mark of this old shore, and while the at- 

 tempt is fraught with danger, it will ever be an inspiring task for those 

 engaged in the process of social reconstruction that now lies before us. 

 I know of no other engineers whose occupation should better fit them for 

 leadership in this task than the biologists, occupying, as they do, a central 

 strategic position in relation to chemistry and physics, geology and 

 astronomy, sociology and the humanities. 



When to this end, we examine, as best we may, the attributes of these 

 basic, chemical elements of nature's substance, we find in them, as in 

 human social atoms, a potential constructive and creative power which be- 

 comes clearly manifest in the familiar processes of chemical action. In 

 that process we are compelled to assume, if we are willing to assume any- 

 thing, that some influence, or effect, we know not what, or how, is exercised 

 by one element on another, the result of which may be the formation of a 

 new unit, or compounded individuality, with a new style of architecture 

 of its own. Coincident with this construction, the former attributes of the 

 constituent parts vanish, and in the new unit a different attribute appears 

 which was not there before. 



We may profitably translate this constructive process into the vernacular, 

 without, I trust, seriously offending the proprieties of the purest scientist, 

 even though the words may 'savor of morality. 



We may say, for example, that when the right chemical elements are 

 in the right relations to one another, or if they are moved into them, or 

 placed there, or if these elements themselves find the right relations by 

 chance, or otherwise, cooperative action between them then takes place auto- 

 matically, or under a compulsion neither can resist, and something new is 

 created. In this cooperative action, each element evidently does something, 

 or give,s something to the other, and receives something from the other. 

 It is in fact apparently a clear case of creative action through mutual sub- 

 jection and mutual service not necessarily service for each other, because 

 for all we know these elements may be the original anarchists and would 

 much prefer neither to give anything to anybody, nor receive anything from 

 anybody but for the molecule so created. 



In this creative process, the essential factors are, unity, mutual service, 

 mutual discipline, and some sort of constructive Tightness. When these 

 conditions are fulfilled, something new is created, and these anarchistic 

 elements then become, perforce, altruistic a t gents, or accessories, to some 

 ulterior creative act, in which they may or may not be interested. In spite 

 of themselves, by their mere existence, they are compelled to act for some- 

 thing beyond self, and in doing so they cease to be anarchists and become 

 more or less orderly servants in a staid molecular society. 



Mr. Molecule, therefore, is created by the mutual services and directive 

 discipline of his constituent atoms, or elements, and by his home surround- 

 ings, all acting cooperatively to give him birth. In his creation, he becomes 

 endowed with a sovereign quality of his own, subject to the sovereignty of 

 his outer world. He endures as long as those cooperative services are 

 rightly performed, and the discipline rightly maintained, and no longer. 

 His existence, therefore, is contingent on the performance of these services, 

 and on the existence of some degree of Tightness within himself, and out- 

 side himself; and that molecule which does survive has preserved within 



