WHAT IS PHYSICAL LIFE 



past, eminent biologists such as Roux, 

 Weismann, Hertwig, De Vries, Driesch, 

 Boveri, Wilson, and a host of others, have 

 been observing, experimenting, and theo- 

 rizing, without coming to the least agree- 

 ment on these subjects; many of them 

 virtually reverting to Darwin's pangene- 

 sis, with the result as expressed by Prof. 

 Wilson* (p. 433), "The truth is that an 

 explanation of development is at pres- 

 ent beyond our reach." 



We would fain emerge, therefore, from 

 the shapeless fogs of the realm of theory 

 into quite another territory whose chief 

 outlines are plainly discernible and which 

 are these. That the old unicellular forms, 

 which still hold the greater portion of the 

 field, seem, most ominously for us, to have 

 resented the appearance of the multicellu- 

 lar forms on this globe and have been 



*E. B. Wilson, The Cell in Development and Inher- 

 itance, Macmillan & Co. 



102 



