Max Verworn. The Hypothesis of Biogenesis. Jena, 1903

The remarks on Max Verworn’s book “Die Biogenhypothese”, Jena, 1903 (Max Verworn, The Hypothesis of Biogenesis, Jena, 1903) are contained in a notebook following the note on Volkmann’s book. Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible where they were located in the original manuscript.

The author expounds a special theme concerning “living substance” and its chem- ical metabolism. A special theme.

A bibliography is provided on this question.

P. 112—a “working hypothesis,” this, he says, is the essence. For example, he says that materialism in the nineteenth century was of great benefit to the natural sciences,—but now “no philosophical nat- ural scientist any longer considers the ma- terialist conception to be adequate” (112). There are no eternal truths. The signifi- cance of ideas, their Fruchtbarkeit, their role as a “ferment”—“which creates and acts.” (113)

|Characteristic here is the naïve ex- pression of the view that “materialism” hinders! Not the haziest conception of dialectical materialism and complete inability to distinguish materialism as a philosophy from the individ- ual hide-bound views of the philistines of the day who call themselves mate- rialists|.

The aim of the author is a “mechanical analysis of the phenomena of life” (p. 1, Preface)—a reference to the last chapter of the Allegemeine Physiologie.

Instead of “living protein” (p. 25)— said to be an unclear concept, and instead of the “living protein molecule” (“since a molecule cannot be alive”), the author proposes to speak of the “biogen-molecule.” (25)