326 



THE AMERICAN NATUBALIST 



[Vol. LI 



or a synthesis of these facts, rather than upon the neces- 

 sity of detailed proof of some explanation which has al- 

 ready been offered. The contents of genetics would verify 

 the proper conceptions if the human mind were only 

 capable of suggesting them. 



In another place,"^ Bateson says, with reference to the 

 mechanism of cell division : 



It is, I fear, a problem rather for the physicist than for the biologist. 

 The sentiment may not be a popular one to utter before an assembly of 

 biologists, but looking at the truth impersonally, I suspect that when at 

 length minds of first rate analj^ical power are attracted to biological 

 problems, some advance will be made of the kind which we are awaiting. 



As a matter of fact, in the school of the physical 

 chemists there has been in preparation, since the days of 

 Thomas Graham, a system of knowledge which, even in 

 its present unfinished form, has a most important and 

 direct bearing upon mooted biological problems. This 

 is the science of the colloidal state. The difficult abstrac- 

 tions and elaborate classificatory scheme, in terms of 

 which the theory is now stated, will tend to be cleared up 

 as our study of colloids comes definitely under the do- 

 minion of the general electro-molecular theory of matter. 

 Intimate contact with the latter has already been estab- 

 lished, indeed, through recent remarkable contributions 

 by Langmuir,® dealing with the atomic constitution of 

 solids and liquids. It is to colloidal chemistry that we 

 must look for answers to the large majority of the fun- 

 damental problems of vital activity. These answers ' 

 be slow in appearing, however, if we refuse to lo^ 



In fairness, it must of course be admitted ■ 

 biologists are keenly alive to the importance of the 

 of matter, and especially of the theory of colloids 

 advancement of their science. However, possibly 

 the majority of these men are specialists in 1 

 there seems to be a lack of colierent applications 



7 Loc. cit., 41. 



sLangrouir, I., "The Constitution rin.l Fundamental 1 

 and Liquids/' Jmirnoi of th^ American Chemical Socuty (1916), 



