ORGANIC REGULATION 107 



matter and energy as independent entities this igno- 

 rance is unavoidable. Clear enough indications exist, 

 however, that the progress of pure physical and chemi- 

 cal investigation is pointing towards truer and more 

 adequate conceptions. The discoveries of the periodic 

 law and of the transmutations of chemical elements 

 in connection with radio-activity indicate an underlying 

 connection between different forms of matter. With 

 Faraday's discovery that in electrolytic dissociation 

 the ions have each a definite electrical charge, and the 

 more recent discoveries of the energy locked up in 

 atoms, and liberated as radio-activity in their decompo- 

 sition, an underlying connection between matter and 

 the energy associated with it has become no less ap- 

 parent. Thus even if we look only at the evidence 

 afforded by the investigation of the inorganic world it 

 seems clear enough that our present conceptions are 

 only working hypotheses: — the pictures which our 

 own generation has formed of it; but only imperfect 

 pictures not adequately representing reality. 



In the organic world we meet with something in 

 the face of which these working hypotheses are far 

 more definitely inadequate; and the very existence of 

 biology is a direct challenge to them. We can never- 

 theless see how they can, up to a certain point, be used 

 successfully in interpreting biological phenomena. For 

 we can take the structure of the living body, not as 

 living structure, but as something given and independ- 

 ent of its environment; and having once made this 

 fundamentally false assumption we can proceed with 

 the investigation of the supposed physical structure 



