Note 199

Biochemistry, in connection with physiological chemistry, as the now most important connection between chemistry-proper and Life, has forcibly become a system-chemistry, which sees  its  task first of all in the clarification of  processes  as well as of the "micro-molecules" involved in them, and of reaction-capable groups of high-molecular compounds, and then seeing the possibility of rendering the problem of life ever more transparent. We can agree with this belief merely indirectly, for the current analytic-methodic research leads to an endless  specification of details  and doesn't show visible points-of-departure from which to obtain statements about interconnection. The purely experimental observation of specification must -- in order to obtain truly valuable results -- be supplemented by thought-associative resynthesis.

From biochemistry and colloid-chemistry there isn't even a direct path leading towards organismic chemistry as one would easily think there is one. Only the reverse is the case, and so indeed also was the historical scientific development. If one, nevertheless, tries a direct path -- in detours there evidently are relationships -- then one arrives at the most weird results, which most often demand a large number of auxiliaries [auxiliary hypotheses], supports, and special moves, or [these results] remain in an undecided state (which perhaps is best anyway).

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