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Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
Subscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets, for
example, C{H} (indicating 'concentration of hydrogen').
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occur in the advertising material at the end of the book
where 8^o and 8vo are used as alternative abbreviations
for 'octavo' (paper size).
THE ORGANISM AS A WHOLE
From a Physicochemical Viewpoint
by
JACQUES LOEB, M.D., Ph.D., Sc.D.
Member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
With 51 Illustrations
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
Copyright, 1916
by
Jacques Loeb
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
To
THE MEMORY OF
DENIS DIDEROT
Of the _Encyclopédie_ and the _Système de la nature_
“He was one of those simple, disinterested, and intellectually
sterling workers to whom their own personality is as nothing in the
presence of the vast subjects that engage the thoughts of their
lives.”
JOHN MORLEY.
(Article Diderot, _Encyclopædia Britannica_.)
PREFACE
It is generally admitted that the individual physiological processes,
such as digestion, metabolism, the production of heat or of
electricity, are of a purely physicochemical character; and it is also
conceded that the functions of individual organs, such as the eye
or the ear, are to be analysed from the viewpoint of the physicist.
When, however, the biologist is confronted with the fact that in the
organism the parts are so adapted to each other as to give rise to a
harmonious whole; and that the organisms are endowed with structures
and instincts calculated to prolong their life and perpetuate their
race, doubts as to the adequacy of a purely physicochemical viewpoint
in biology may arise. The difficulties besetting the biologist in this
problem have been rather increased than diminished by the discovery of
Mendelian heredity, according to which each character is transmitted
independently of any other character. Since the number of Mendelian
characters in each organism is large, the possibility must be faced
that the organism is merely a mosaic of independent hereditary
characters. If this be the case the question arises: What moulds these
independent characters into a harmonious whole?
The vitalist settles this question by assuming the existence of a
pre-established design for each organism and of a guiding “force”
or “principle” which directs the working out of this design. Such
assumptions remove the problem of accounting for the harmonious
character of the organism from the field of physics or chemistry. The
theory of natural selection invokes neither design nor purpose, but it
is incomplete since it disregards the physicochemical constitution of
living matter about which little was known until recently.
In this book an attempt is made to show that the unity of the organism
is due to the fact that the egg (or rather its cytoplasm) is the future
embryo upon which the Mendelian factors in the chromosomes can impress
only individual characteristics, probably by giving rise to special
hormones and enzymes. We can cause an egg to develop into an organism
without a spermatozoön, but apparently we cannot make a spermatozoön
develop into an organism without the cytoplasm of an egg, although
sperm and egg nucleus transmit equally the Mendelian characters. The
conception that the cytoplasm of the egg is already the embryo in the
rough may be of importance also for the problem of evolution since
it suggests the possibility that the genus- and species-heredity are
determined by the cytoplasm of the egg, while the Mendelian hereditary
characters cannot contribute at all or only to a limited extent to
the formation of new species. Such an idea is supported by the work
on immunity, which shows that genus- and probably species-specificity
are due to specific proteins, while the Mendelian characters may be
determined by hormones which need neither be proteins nor specific or
by enzymes which also need not be specific for the species or genus.
Such a conception would remove the difficulties which the work on
Mendelian heredity has seemingly created not only for the problem of
evolution but also for the problem of the harmonious character of the
organism as a whole.
Since the book is intended as a companion volume to the writer’s former
treatise on _The Comparative Physiology of the Brain_ a discussion of
the functions of the central nervous system is omitted.
Completeness in regard to quotation of literature was out of the
question, but the writer notices with regret, that he has failed to
refer in the text to so important a contribution to the subject as
Sir E. A. Schäfer’s masterly presidential address on “Life” or the
addresses of Correns and Goldschmidt on the determination of sex.
Credit should also have been given to Professor Raymond Pearl for the
discrimination between species and individual inheritance.
The writer wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to his friends
Professor E. G. Conklin of Princeton, Professor Richard Goldschmidt
of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut of Berlin, Dr. P. A. Levene of the
Rockefeller Institute, Professor T. H. Morgan of Columbia University,
and Professor Hardolph Wasteneys of the University of California who
kindly read one or more chapters of the book and offered valuable
suggestions; and he wishes especially to thank his wife for suggesting
many corrections in the manuscript and the proof.
The book is dedicated to that group of freethinkers, including
d’Alembert, Diderot, Holbach, and Voltaire, who first dared to follow
the consequences of a mechanistic science--incomplete as it then
was--to the rules of human conduct and who thereby laid the foundation
of that spirit of tolerance, justice, and gentleness which was the hope
of our civilization until it was buried under the wave of homicidal
emotion which has swept through the world. Diderot was singled out,
since to him the words of Lord Morley are devoted, which, however, are
more or less characteristic of the whole group.
J. L.
The Rockefeller Institute
for Medical Research,
_August, 1916_
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
Introductory Remarks 1