iew can perhaps not be
completely refuted until the adequacy of materialistic explanations has
been finally shown; but it is certain that the most promising method for
research is the materialistic (p. 226).

"We start out then from the assumption that the basis of the organism is
not a force acting according to a definite plan; on the contrary, the
organism arises through the action of blind and necessary laws, of
forces which are as much implicit in matter as those of the inorganic
world. Since the chemical elements in organic Nature differ in no way
from those of inorganic Nature, the ground or cause of organic phenomena
can consist only in a different mode of combination of matter, either in
a peculiar mode of combination of the elementary atoms to form atoms of
the second order, or in the particular arrangement of these compound
molecules to form the separate morphological units of the organism or
the whole organism itself" (p. 226). Accepting then the materialistic
conception of the organism, we have to consider this further problem.
Does the ground of organic processes lie in the whole organism or in its
elementary parts? Translated into terms of metabolism--note the
physiological point of view--the question runs, are metabolic processes
the result of the molecular construction of the organism as a whole, or
does the centre of metabolic activity lie in the cell? Is it the cell
rather than the organism that is the immediate agent of assimilatory
processes? In the first alternative the cause of the growth of the
constituent parts lies in the totality of the organism; in the other
alternative:--"Growth is not the result of a force having its ground in
the organism as a whole, but each of the elementary parts possesses a
force of its own, a life of its own, if you will; that is to say, in
each elementary part the molecules are so combined as to set free a
force whereby the cell is enabled to attract new molecules and so to
grow, and the whole organism exists only through the reciprocal action
of the single elementary parts.... In this eventuality it is the
elementary parts that form the active element in nutrition, and the
totality of the organism can be indeed a condition, but on this view it
cannot be a cause" (p. 227).

To help in the decision of this question, appeal must be made to the
facts established as to the cellular nature of the organism and of its
reproductive elements. We know that every organism is co