When the present book project was reviewed, some reviewers suggested the
best thing would be for me to write a book on the character concept on my own.
I did not follow this advice, and the contributions collected in this volume show
I made the fight decision. The problems associated with the biological character
problem are so complex and multifaceted and this issue is so conceptually imma￾ture that any single author's account is doomed to be too narrow and lopsided to
be of much use. I am convinced that only the interaction between the results from
many model systems and techniques, the ideas of many people, and the productive
criticism among colleagues will yield progress in this difficult conceptual territory.