Waddington, C.H. The Nature of Life. London: George, Allen, & Unwin, 1961.

Abstract

This short book is an attempt to throw a bridge across one stretch of the gulf which, we are told, separates the 'Two Cultures'. It is based on a series of lectures given by Professor Waddington to students and staff of all faculties at the University College of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica. He tries to show what modern biology has to offer worthy of the interest of any generally cultivated person of today. How do we nowadays regard the major problems about the nature of life, which men have debated since the time of Greek civilization? Is life merely a matter of chemistry, special only because of its complexity? Or is biological organization something entirely different from any non-living process? In this world of 'thinking machines' and target-seeking missiles, what sense, if any, is left in the old question whether life is governed by purpose or is at the mercy of mere chance? Does the problem of free-will arise merely from a muddle about words? Is it solved by recent physical theories about the behavior of ultra-small particles? Biology cannot, of course, supply final answers to these ancient riddles; but it can throw on them some new light which anyone who reflects about himself and his nature will find worth pondering.