22 The Unity of the Organism 



How far theorizing has gone on this road is indicated bj 

 the much noticed address by WiUiam Bateson, one of the 

 foremost MeiideHan geneticists, as president of the British 

 Associatioji for the Advancement of Science in 1914^. In this 

 address Bateson suggested, whether with full seriousness or 

 not no one seems quite sure, the above mentioned hypotheses 

 of the loss-of-characters method of origin of all organic 

 species. 



The chromosome theory having been elaborated into what 

 it now is, the easy step, to the conception that the First, 

 or Original Organism, as something close of kin to a chro- 

 mosome, has already been taken by an able student, E. A. 

 Minchin, the imaginary Primal Organism being called by 

 him "Biococcus." This speculation we shall consider in our 

 foi*mal discussion of the chromosome theory of heredity. 



To bring together these suggestions by Bateson and Min- 

 chin and elaborate them into a complete, well-rounded theory 

 requires only a biologist, preferably a German, with the 

 industry and learning and imaginative logic of a Weismann. 

 This accomplished, the ultimate nature and the evolution 

 of the whole past, present, and future organic world would 

 be causally explained by referring it to a primordial chro- 

 matinic hierarchy which contained the determiners, or fac- 

 tors, of all later visible organisms, and from which these 

 issued by the transfonnation of latent into actual organisms 

 through the removal of factors which inhibit the actuation 

 of other factors. But practicable as such a complete ex- 

 planatory theory is, and harmonious as it could readily be 

 made with certain far-reaching and widely favored concep- 

 tions in modern physics, it is very doubtful if the enterprise 

 is ever carried out — at least for any other purpose than as 

 an illustration of how elaborate and consistent and withal 

 beautiful a structure can be erected by pure logic. 



My main reason for believing the enterprise will never be 

 carried through, seriously, is tha.t the organismal stand- 



