CHAPTER X 



CHEMICAL ADAPTATION AND INHERITANCE 



OUR review of the chemical phenomena in 

 life would not be complete unless we had a 

 last glance at the chemical phenomena of variation, 

 adaptation and inheritance in living beings. The 

 investigation of these phenomena lies at present 

 so much within the territory of morphology 

 that one scarcely thinks of the importance of 

 chemical work in this department of biological 

 science. Chemical methods, however, are here 

 of particularly great interest. Morphology, being a 

 comparative science, draws attention only to the 

 results of variation and adaptation. Chemistry 

 has to show the whole course of phenomena, not 

 only the results, and it has to consider the influence 

 of time on phenomena, to determine the minima 

 and maxima in the course of reactions, and to 

 introduce the Time Factor into all these in- 

 vestigations. In chemistry, therefore, variation 

 can be observed in the course of phenomena as well 

 as in the final results. Since alterations and 

 variations in the course of physiological actions 

 can generally be traced back to the influences of 

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