The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
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Spencer Herbert. The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
PREFACE TO THE REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION
PREFACE
PART I. THE DATA OF BIOLOGY
CHAPTER I. ORGANIC MATTER
CHAPTER II. THE ACTIONS OF FORCES ON ORGANIC MATTER
CHAPTER III. THE RE-ACTIONS OF ORGANIC MATTER ON FORCES
CHAPTER IIIA. METABOLISM
CHAPTER IV.14. PROXIMATE CONCEPTION OF LIFE
CHAPTER V. THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES
CHAPTER VI. THE DEGREE OF LIFE VARIES AS THE DEGREE OF CORRESPONDENCE
CHAPTER VIA. THE DYNAMIC ELEMENT IN LIFE
CHAPTER VII. THE SCOPE OF BIOLOGY
PART II. THE INDUCTIONS OF BIOLOGY
CHAPTER I. GROWTH
CHAPTER II. DEVELOPMENT.19
CHAPTER IIA. STRUCTURE.21
CHAPTER III. FUNCTION
CHAPTER IV. WASTE AND REPAIR
CHAPTER V. ADAPTATION
CHAPTER VI. INDIVIDUALITY
CHAPTER VIA. CELL-LIFE AND CELL-MULTIPLICATION
CHAPTER VII. GENESIS
CHAPTER VIII. HEREDITY
CHAPTER IX. VARIATION
CHAPTER X. GENESIS, HEREDITY, AND VARIATION
CHAPTER XA. GENESIS, HEREDITY, AND VARIATIONCONCLUDED
CHAPTER XI. CLASSIFICATION
CHAPTER XII. DISTRIBUTION
PART III. THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY
CHAPTER II. GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE SPECIAL-CREATION-HYPOTHESIS.45
CHAPTER III. GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE EVOLUTION-HYPOTHESIS
CHAPTER IV. THE ARGUMENTS FROM CLASSIFICATION
CHAPTER V. THE ARGUMENTS FROM EMBRYOLOGY
CHAPTER VI. THE ARGUMENTS FROM MORPHOLOGY
CHAPTER VII. THE ARGUMENTS FROM DISTRIBUTION
CHAPTER VIII. HOW IS ORGANIC EVOLUTION CAUSED?
CHAPTER IX. EXTERNAL FACTORS
CHAPTER X. INTERNAL FACTORS
CHAPTER XI. DIRECT EQUILIBRATION
CHAPTER XII. INDIRECT EQUILIBRATION
CHAPTER XIII. THE CO-OPERATION OF THE FACTORS
CHAPTER XIV. THE CONVERGENCE OF THE EVIDENCES
CHAPTER XIVA. RECENT CRITICISMS AND HYPOTHESES
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A. THE GENERAL LAW OF ANIMAL FERTILITY
APPENDIX B. THE INADEQUACY OF NATURAL SELECTION, ETC., ETC
APPENDIX C. THE INHERITANCE OF FUNCTIONALLY-WROUGHT MODIFICATIONS: A SUMMARY
APPENDIX D. ON ALLEGED "SPONTANEOUS GENERATION," AND ON THE HYPOTHESIS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL UNITS
Отрывок из книги
The aim of this work is to set forth the general truths of Biology, as illustrative of, and as interpreted by, the laws of Evolution: the special truths being introduced only so far as is needful for elucidation of the general truths.
For aid in executing it, I owe many thanks to Prof. Huxley and Dr. Hooker. They have supplied me with information where my own was deficient;1 and, in looking through the proof-sheets, have pointed out errors of detail into which I had fallen. By having kindly rendered me this valuable assistance, they must not, however, be held committed to any of the enunciated doctrines that are not among the recognized truths of Biology.
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We are obliged to conclude that in carnivorous animals the katabolic process is congruous with the first of these views, in so far that the evolution of energy must in some way result solely from the fall of complex nitrogenous compounds into those simpler matters which make their appearance as waste; for, practically, the carnivorous animal has no carbo-hydrates out of which otherwise to evolve force. To this admission, however, it should be added that possibly out of the exclusively nitrogenous food, glycogen or sugar has to be obtained by partial decomposition before muscular action can take place. But when we pass to animals having food consisting mainly of carbo-hydrates, several difficulties stand in the way of the hypothesis that, by further compounding, proteids must be formed from the carbo-hydrates before muscular energy can be evolved. In the first place the anabolic change through which, by the addition of nitrogen, &c., a proteid is formed from a carbo-hydrate, must absorb an energy equal to a moiety of that which is given out in the subsequent katabolic change. There can be no dynamic profit on such part of the transaction as effects the composition and subsequent decomposition of the proteid, but only on such part of the transaction as effects the decomposition of the carbo-hydrate. In the second place there arises the question – whence comes the nitrogen required for the compounding of the carbo-hydrates into proteids? There is none save that contained in the serum-albumen or other proteid which the blood brings; and there can be no gain in robbing this proteid of nitrogen for the purpose of forming another proteid. Hence the nitrogenizing of the surplus carbo-hydrates is not accounted for. One more difficulty remains. If the energy given out by a muscle results from the katabolic consumption of its proteids, then the quantity of nitrogenous waste matters formed should be proportionate to the quantity of work done. But experiments have proved that this is not the case. Long ago it was shown that the amount of urea excreted does not increase in anything like proportion to the amount of muscular energy expended; and recently this has been again shown.
On this statement a criticism has been made to the following effect: – Considering that muscle will contract when deprived of oxygen and blood and must therefore contain matter from which the energy is derived; and considering that since carbonic acid is given out the required carbon and oxygen must be derived from some component of muscle; it results that the energy must be obtained by decomposition of a nitrogenous body. To this reasoning it may be objected, in the first place, that the conditions specified are abnormal, and that it is dangerous to assume that what takes place under abnormal conditions takes place also under normal ones. In presence of blood and oxygen the process may possibly, or even probably, be unlike that which arises in their absence: the muscular substance may begin consuming itself when it has not the usual materials to consume. Then, in the second place, and chiefly, it may be replied that the difficulty raised in the foregoing argument is not escaped but merely obscured. If, as is alleged, the carbon and oxygen from which carbonic acid is produced, form, under the conditions stated, parts of a complex nitrogenous substance contained in muscle, then the abstraction of the carbon and oxygen must cause decomposition of this nitrogenous substance; and in that case the excretion of nitrogenous waste must be proportionate to the amount of work done, which it is not. This difficulty is evaded by supposing that the "stored complex explosive substance must be, in living muscle, of such nature" that after explosion it leaves a "nitrogenous residue available for re-combination with fresh portions of carbon and oxygen derived from the blood and thereby the re-constitution of the explosive substance." This implies that a molecule of the explosive substance consists of a complex nitrogenous molecule united with a molecule of carbo-hydrate, and that time after time it suddenly decomposes this carbo-hydrate molecule and thereupon takes up another such from the blood. That the carbon is abstracted from the carbo-hydrate molecule can scarcely be said, since the feebler affinities of the nitrogenous molecule can hardly be supposed to overcome the stronger affinities of the carbo-hydrate molecule. The carbo-hydrate molecule must therefore be incorporated bodily. What is the implication? The carbo-hydrate part of the compound is relatively stable, while the nitrogenous part is relatively unstable. Hence the hypothesis implies that, time after time, the unstable nitrogenous part overthrows the stable carbo-hydrate part, without being itself overthrown. This conclusion, to say the least of it, does not appear very probable.
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