194 The Unity of the Organism 



substituting organism for cell in the statements of biochem- 

 istry. It reveals important details of the general truth that 

 the organism and not the cell is what physical chemistry is 

 in reality carrying biochemistry toward. For instance, com- 

 pare Hopkins' assertion that it is impossible to attribute 

 cell life to "any one particular type of molecule" with Lil- 

 lie's that the traditional view according to which cells are 

 "originally independent parts" and only secondarily be- 

 come incorporated into the "physiological unity," must be 

 replaced by the conception that there are "certain proper- 

 ties of the whole" which constitute a "principle of unity" 

 that are part of the "original inheritance" of the organism. 

 The parity here suggested between the natural historian's 

 objection to conceiving "life" as a phenomenon of "the 

 Cell," as though on ultimate analysis there were only one 

 kind of cell, and the modern biochemist's objection to con- 

 ceiving "life" as a phenomenon of "one particular type of 

 molecule" should be examined a bit closer. What Hopkins 

 has in mind in taking a stand against "a particular type of 

 molecule" as the explanation of life is the "ultimate physio- 

 logical unit" theory which has cropped up under so many 

 nomenclatorial garbs in later years, but has reached its 

 most plausible form, perhaps, in the biogen conception, ably 

 defended by Verworn. 



To this conception, no matter what guise it assumes, 

 physical chemistry brings the insurmountable objection, so 

 far as the living cell is concerned, that "life" in the very 

 simplest expression of it known to observational science, is 

 yet a great complex of structures and activities which con- 

 stitute a system. It is a space-occupying, shape-presenting, 

 self-equilibrating complex. Its very existence is a phenom- 

 enon of multiplex dynamic unity, the parts of which though 

 constituting the whole are yet subordinate to the whole. 

 Hence the modern biochemist's assertion that we cannot 

 properly speak of the living molecules in the cell, but must 



