Dear Marion,

Thank you very much for both your letters,
the one about Nathaniel and, this evening, the
other one about proteins. I am forever embarrassed
by, and ashamed of my ignorance, and I cannot but
admit that I am now too old to learn, for the
obvious reason that my memory lacks the tenacity
to reconstruct the complex models on which organic
chemistry and biochemistry rely. I am not too old,
however, to venture the notion that the biochemist
has gained extraordinary proficiency in constructing
and analysing and applying his models, and his
work requires such dedication and concentration
that in order to accomplish his task, the biochemist
must necessarily and unavoidably forget that he or
she is elaborating and manipulating a set of models
rather than that reality which alone can make the
models ultimately compelling.

I trace the history of biology from the identification
of organs and tissues, then, subsequent to the invention of
the microscope, to the discovery of cells, and then on 
to the identification of parts of the cell, the membranes,
the cytoplasm, the nucleus, the nucleolus, and mitochondria
all in search of the ultimate object, the biological
molecule and its constituent atoms that was to provide
the ultimate explanation of being.

Then, in a dialectic reversal, it is discovered that meaning
and function are not to be divined by further subdivision
or by classification of the products already subdivided,
but that function is explained by the structure and configuration
of relatively large aggregates; a process of synthesis which if
pursued with sufficient diligence and vigor to its logical
conclusion, might be assumed to issue in the recreation by
synthesis of that very organism that was sacrificed in the
analytic pursuit of knowledge.

I'm much impressed that the biochemical model of nature
is a diagrammatic explanation which is inseparable from
words, and that metabiochemistry issues in the interpretation
of symbols, especially in the interpretation of language,
that in other words, metabiochemistry is literary criticism
in the most profound meaning of this concept. I readily
acknowledge that in proposing metabiochemistry to be
literary criticism, quite literally I do not know what
I am talking about. This is a valid objection which I
would counter with the observation that scientists, no
matter how adroit in their field, also, quite literally
"do not know what they are talking about," when they
confuse the model that they so lovingly and diligently
elaborate, with a reality that is inaccessible to them.

Notwithstanding the foregoing nonsense, please teach
me more biochemistry, or in any case, even if I'm a
student beyond hope, please continue to try to do so.

Jochen