The Organism as a Whole, from a Physicochemical Viewpoint

The book tackles the age‑old puzzle of how the many parts of a living being work together as a seamless whole. It begins by acknowledging that individual physiological processes—digestion, metabolism, heat production—are clearly physico‑chemical, yet the overall harmony of organs and instincts resists a purely chemical explanation. The author also confronts the complications introduced by Mendelian genetics, which seem to fragment the organism into independent traits, and asks what binds these fragments into a coherent entity.

To answer that, the work proposes that the egg’s cytoplasm already contains the nascent embryo, providing a unifying scaffold on which genetic factors imprint specific characteristics. By examining experiments that can coax an egg to develop without sperm, the author argues that hormones, enzymes, and cytoplasmic proteins are the key mediators of species‑level unity, while Mendelian factors fine‑tune individual traits. This perspective reshapes discussions of evolution and immunity, suggesting that the broader biological design may arise from the egg’s chemistry rather than from genes alone.