Biology's Contribution to a Theory of Morals 93 



between individual and social man may be attained. 

 Buried deep in the technical details of biological 

 knowledge there repose truths which if brought into 

 the light of common day and set in right relation with 

 certain truths of human nature, would, I believe, con- 

 tribute to establishing the inviolability and potency of 

 the individual on a securer foundation than either sci- 

 ence or philosophy has hitherto been able to lay down. 

 Likewise from the same obscurity may be extracted 

 truths which would give a more solid and commodious 

 base than has yet been constructed for an understand- 

 ing of the interdependences among individuals in civil- 

 ized society. 



The great point about individuality is that re- 

 searches in the comparative structure, function and 

 behavior of living beings, combined with comparative 

 biochemistry, is leading to the perception that closely 

 related species and even individuals differ from one an- 

 other in certain attributes so profoundly that these 

 differences extend down to the very chemical constitu- 

 tion of these beings. Considering this fact along with 

 the further fact that every organism maintains its 

 identity despite the perpetual flow through it of matter 

 and energy called metabolism, there is seen to be no 

 escape from the conclusion that the organism is crea- 

 tive in the deepest sense. The synthetic limb of the 

 metabolic cycle results in some substances and forces 

 that have no exact duplicates anywhere in the world. 

 But if there are certain differentials in the chemical 



