ABSTRACT
T he idea of studying evolution at the chemical level is by no means a new one. The first important synthesis in this field was published nearly twenty years ago by Marcel Florkin. In his book Biochemical Evolution (1944) Florkin lists many suggestive chemical differences between organisms, including quantitative changes in inorganic and qualitative changes in various organic molecules. Such changes certainly illustrate evolution. But seriations of morphological characters seem to be more informative markers of evolution and to do more for the establishment of evolutionary affinities between organisms than seriations of chemical characters involving inorganic or most types of organic molecules. Although morphological characters of living matter undoubtedly are among the most complex effects in existence in the universe and as such should be among the poorest analytical tools, they can be revealing of fundamental relationships in that they express the interplay of a great number of the most specific organic constituents.
