or even very long,_ in the same direction, without bringing tlie form to a new 

 point of sudden dissolution. In no sense, however, is stabiHty ever absolute 

 and even in strictly line propagation an occasional sport character from a parent 

 sport is to be expected". 



The assumption that the vital processes in heredity follow the same law 

 that govern electronic phenomena would lose none of its logical consistency or 

 cogency, in whatever light we may regard the nature of the electron. Were 

 the electron the ultimate, indivisible, material particle that we once supposed 

 the atom to be, it would in no wise lessen the demand upon us to seek the 

 interpretation of vital phenomena through the use of the principles underlying 

 electronic activity. The pathway of science is strewn with the wrecks of 

 "good working hypotheses." The theory that "seems to account for all the 

 facts" is often more deceptive and dangerous than one that flaunts in our face 

 its obvious contradictions and impossibilities. The mathematician must fre- 

 quently deal with an equation yielding two very different but equally correct 

 results. The scientific hypothesis that leaves no crevice for an exception or 

 denial may be likened to one of the answers to such an equation. Some other 

 very different hypothesis — possibly any one of several — might serve equally 

 well to account for the observed phenomena. We should demand more than 

 this from ever)^ scientific theory. One of its chief merits should be its high 

 degree of plausibility. It must meet the inexorable demands of rationalistic 

 necessity. Whatever other merits it may possess, the theory that is fundamentally 

 illogical cannot survive, however well it may appearently account for all the 

 facts. 



The biology of the future will occupy and utilize the immense field opened 

 up for it by the electronic theory of matter. Late researches in physics and 

 chemistry offer the student of heredity opportunities never before available; 

 and which, if wisely utilized, will do more to introduce scientific orecision into 

 the study of vital phenomena than has ever before been accomplished in the 

 entire history of biological inquiry. 



The observed fact that ontogenetic development is an epitome of phylogene- 

 tic evolution, is seen in a new light of mathematical necessity, when the 

 formulae of electrolytic experimentation are introduced into the domain of 

 operative vital factors. Apply the electronic methods of the laboratory to the 

 problems of heredity, and the mystery enveloping the genesis of variation dis- 

 appears, and the sudden appearance of new forms is seen to be tlie natural and 

 inevitable results of exact mathematical laws. Electrolytic chemistry has already 

 determined these laws for electronic action; now, let us simply extend their 

 application and operation into and throughout the field of vital inheritance. 



James R. Allen 

 San Fernando, Cal., June 23, 1921. 



