January 30, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



97 



attempts to launch a religion, or a philosophy, 

 that will stand the test of experience. 



And all these mournful wrecks are jealously 

 guarded by marooned mariners of hope, and 

 their beach-combing followers, who show no 

 mercy to intruders. But modern science, 

 which has wisely built on firmer, though drier 

 ground, must ultimately extend the founda- 

 tions of all of her out-housings down to the 

 low water mark of this old shore, and while 

 the attempt is fraught with danger, it will 

 ever be an inspiring task for those engaged 

 in the process of social reconstruction that 

 now lies before us. I know of no other engi- 

 neers whose occupation should better fit them 

 for leadership in this task than the biologists, 

 occupying, as they do, a central strategic 

 position in relation to chemistry and physics, 

 geology and astronomy, sociology and the 

 humanities. 



When to this end, we examine, as best we 

 may, the attributes of these basic, chemical 

 elements of nature's substance, we find in 

 them, as in human social atoms, a potential 

 constructive and creative power which becomes 

 clearly manifest in the familiar processes of 

 chemical action. In that process we are com- 

 pelled to assume, if we are willing to assume 

 anything, that some influence, or effect, we 

 know not what, or how, is exercised by one 

 element on another, the result of which may 

 be the formation of a new unit, or compounded 

 individuality, with a new style of architecture 

 of its own. Coincident with this construction, 

 the former attributes of the constituent parts 

 vanish, and in the new unit a different at- 

 tribute appears which was not there before. 



We may profitably translate this construc- 

 tive process into the vernacular, without, T 

 trust, seriously offending the properties of the 

 purest scientist, even though the words may 

 savor of morality. 



We may say, for example, that when the 

 right chemical elements are in the right rela- 

 tions to one another, or if they are moved into 

 them, or placed there or if these elements 

 themselves find the right relations by chance, 

 or otherwise, cooperative action between them 

 then takes place automatically, or under a 



compulsion neither can resist, and something 

 new is created. In this cooperative action, 

 each element evidently does something, or 

 gives something to the other, and receives 

 something from the other. It is in fact ap- 

 parently a clear case of creative action 

 through mutual subjection and mutual serv- 

 ice — not necessarily service for each other, 

 because for all we know these elements may 

 be the original anarchists and would much 

 prefer neither to give anything to anybody, 

 nor receive anything from anybody — but for 

 the molecule so created. 



In this creative process, the essential 

 factors are, unity, mutual service, mutual 

 discipline, and some sort of constructive 

 rightness. When these conditions are ftil- 

 filled, something new is created, and these 

 anarchistic elements then become, perforce, al- 

 truistic agents, or accessories, to some ulterior 

 creative act, in which they may or may not be 

 interested. In spite of themselves, by their 

 mere existence, they are compelled to act for 

 something beyond self, and in doing so they 

 cease to be anarchists and become more or less 

 orderly servants in a staid molecular society. 



Mr. Molecule, therefore, is created by the 

 mutual services and directive discipline of his 

 constituent atoms, or elements, and by his 

 home surroundings, all acting cooperatively to 

 give him birth. In his creation, he becomes 

 endowed with a sovereign quality of his own, 

 subject to the sovereignty of his outer world. 

 He endures as long as those cooperative 

 services are rightly performed, and the dis- 

 cipline rightly maintained, and no longer. 

 His existence, therefore, is contingent on the 

 performance of these services, and on the ex- 

 istence of some degree of rightness within 

 himself, and outside himself; and that mole- 

 cule which does survive has preserved within 

 its makeup some measure of that rightness. 

 In that measure of cooperation and rightness 

 lies the fitness of his constituents, and the 

 selective agency in the evolution of the mole- 

 cule. 



But the molecule thus peremptorily set up 

 in business for itself, and without being con- 

 sulted in any way as to his own wishes in the 

 matter, has his own work in the world to do. 



