CHAPTER X 



SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY 



The course of development of every branch of natural science 

 has been the same. It begins by the observation and classifi- 

 cation of the objects and phenomena of nature. The next 

 step is to decompose the more complex phenomena in order 

 to determine the physical mechanism underlying them — the 

 science has become analytical. Finally, when the mechanism 

 of a phenomenon is understood, it becomes possible to repro- 

 duce it, to repeat it by directing the physical forces which are 

 its cause — the science has now become synthetical. 



Modern biology admits that the phenomena of life are 

 physico-chemical in their nature. Although we have not as 

 yet been able to define the exact nature of the physical and 

 chemical processes which underlie all vital phenomena, yet 

 every further discovery confirms our belief that the physical 

 laws of life are identical with those of the mineral world, and 

 modern research tends more and more to prove that life is 

 produced by the same forces and is subject to the same laws 

 that regulate inanimate matter. 



The evolution of biology has been the same as that of the 

 other sciences ; it has been successively descriptive, analytical, 

 and synthetic. Just as synthetic chemistry began with the 

 artificial formation of the simplest organic products, so bio- 

 logical synthesis must content itself at first with the fabrication 

 of forms resembling those of the lowest organisms. Like other 

 sciences, synthetic biology must proceed from the simpler to 

 the more complex, beginning with the reproduction of the 

 more elementary vital phenomena. Later on we may hope to 

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