Footnotes1.This has been urged often enough even by scientific investigators. In such cases they have frequently been reproached for dragging miracles into nature when they call a halt in face of the“underivable”and the“mysterious.”This is a complete misunderstanding. With miracles and with the supernatural in the historical sense of these words, this mode of regarding nature has nothing whatever to do. It would be much more reasonable to maintain the converse: that there exists between supernatural ideas and the belief in the absolute explicability and rationalisation of nature a peculiar mutual relation and attraction. For, if we think out the relation clearly, we must see that all real and consistent belief in miracles demands as its most effective background the clearest possible explicability of nature. It pictures to itself two natures, so to speak: nature and supernature, and the latter of these interpolates itself into the former in the form of sudden and occasional interruptions; that is to say, as miracles. The purpose of miracles is to be recognised as such, as events absolutely different from the ordinary course of happening. And they are most likely thus to be recognised when nature itself is translucent and mathematical. Thus we find that supernaturalism quite readily accepts, and even insists upon a rationalistic explanation of nature. But this is quite incorrect. Nature is not so thoroughly rationalised and calculable as such a point of view would have us believe.The really religious element in belief in miracles is that it, too, in its own way, is seeking after mystery, dependence and providence. It fails because it naïvely seeks for these in isolated and exceptional acts, which have no analogy to other phenomena. It regards these as arbitrary acts, and does so because it overlooks or underestimates the fact that they have to be reckoned with throughout the whole of nature.2.Not even after the scholastic manner of regarding eternity as a“nunc stans,”a stationary now, an everlasting present.“Present”is a moment in our own time, and an“everlasting”present is nonsense.3.“Reden über die Religion, an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern.”Neu herausgegeben von R. Otto. 1906.4.Kgl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1876.5.Some of these subsidiary factors are difficult to harmonise with the main principle of selection; they endanger it or it endangers them, as we shall see when we consider the controversies within the Darwinian camp.6.H. Friedmann,“Die Konvergenz der Organismen,”Berlin, 1904.7.It is somewhat confusing that even Weismann in his most recent work professes to give“Lectures on the Theory of Descent,”and in reality only assumes it, concerning himself with the Darwinian theory in the strict sense. The English translation is more correctly entitled“The Evolution Theory.”8.Cf.Wagner,“Zur gegenwärtigen Lage des Darwinismus.”“Die Umschau,”January, 1900.9.Eugen Dubois (Military Surgeon of the Dutch Army),“Pithecanthropus erectus, a man-like transition-form from Java.”Batavia. 1904.10.H. Friedenthal.“Ueber einen experimentellen Nachweis von Blutsverwandtschaft.”Archiv. f. Anatomie und Physiologie, 1900, p. 404.11.Jena, 1904. Trans.“The Evolution Theory,”Arnold. London 1904.12.A defence of this very confident Darwinian point of view, for the benefit of non-scientific readers, will be found in the recent“Gemeinverständlichen darwinistischen Vorträgen und Abhandlungen,”by Plate, Simroth, Schmidt, and others. See also Ziegler's“Ueber den derzcitigen Stand der Descendenzlehre in der Zoologie.”13.“Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit,”Festschrift für Bastian, p. 9.14.“Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit,”Festschrift für Bastian, p. 6.15.“Sammlung gemeinverständl. Vorträge, hrsg. v. Virchow und Holtzendorf,”Heft 96.“Menschen und Affenschädel,”Berlin, 1870.16.“Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,”1882, p. 276.17.“Verh. Berlin anthropolog. Gesellschaft iv.”(1872), p. 132. It does, however, appear strange to the lay mind that it should have been only the pathological subjects of prehistoric times that had their remains preserved for our modern study.18.Cf.“Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,”1895, pp. 78, 735.19.Cf.“Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit.”Festschrift für Bastian, 1895.20.See also“Descendenz und Pathologie.”Arch. f. path. Anat. a. Physiol., 1886;“Transformation und Abstammung.”Berliner Klin. Wochenschrift, 1893.21.First edition, Leipzig, 1887. A second edition and an English translation have since been published. See especially the discussion of the origin and history of species in the second volume.22.See English translation of Kerner's Plant Life.23.Cf.a criticism of the book from the Darwinian point of view by Plate in Biologisches Centralblatt, 1901.24.That this points only to the fact of evolution, and not necessarily to actual descent, will be seen later on.25.First edition, 1899; now in a second edition.26.“Genealogie der Urzellen als Lösung des Descendenzproblems”(1872), and“Der Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newtons und Cuviers”(1874-1877).27.“Eine kritische Darstellung der modernen Entwicklungslehre,”Jena, 1892.28.Compare Darwin's derivation of fishes from Tunicata because of the notochord which occurs in the tunicate larvæ.29.See Hertwig's“Biological Problem of To-day.”London 1896.30.The justice of this prophecy has been meanwhile illustrated by the recent work of H. Friedmann,“Die Konvergenz der Organismen,”Berlin, 1904.31.If we wish to, we can even read the“biogenetic law”in Dante. See“Purgatory,”p. 26, where the embryo attains successively to the plant, animal and human stages:“Anima fatta la virtute attiva,Qual d'unapianta....Come fungo marino ...Ma comed'animaldivengafante.”This is, of course, nothing else than Aristotle's theory of evolution, done into terzarima, and corrected by St. Thomas.For the latest application of these views, even in relation to the“biogenetic fundamental law,”see the finely finished“Morpho-genetic Studies”of T. Garbowski (Jena, 1903):“The greater part of what is usually referred to the so-called fundamental biogenetic law depends on illusion, since all things undeveloped or imperfect must bear a greater or less resemblance one to another.”32.I.e., The occurrence of saltatory, transilient, or discontinuous variations or mutations.33.I.e., The emergence of a distinctively new pattern of organisation.34.See H. G. Bronn's Appendix to his translation of Darwin's“Origin of Species.”First German edition.35.Finally and comprehensively in the two volumes we have already mentioned,“Vorträge über die Deszendenztheorie,”Jena, 1902 (Eng. trans., London, 1904).“Natural selection depends essentially upon the cumulative augmentation of the most minute useful variations in the direction of their utility; only the useful is developed and increased, and great effects are brought about slowly through the summing up of many very minute steps.... But the philosophical significance of natural selection lies in the fact that it shows us how to explain the origin of useful, well-adapted structures purely by mechanical factors, and without having to fall back upon a directive principle.”36.If it were not white it would be observed by the seals, which would thus avoid being devoured by it. See Weismann, I., p. 70. (English edition, p. 65.)37.It is almost comical when Weismann, the champion of the purely naturalistic outlook, occasionally forgets his rôle altogether, and puts in a word for“chance,”or attempts to soften absolute predetermination. For if even a single wolf should destroy a stag“by chance,”or if a single“id”should“chance”to grow in a manner slightly different from that laid down for it by the compelling force of preceding and accompanying circumstances, the whole Darwinian edifice would be labour lost.38.See Darwin,“... chance variations. Unless such occur, natural selection can do nothing.”39.“Die Darwinsehe Theorie. Gemeinverständliche Vorlesungen über die Naturphilosophie der Gegenwart gehalten vor Studierenden aller Fakultäten,”Leipzig, 1903. This book is the continuation of the author's“Deszendenztheorie.”40.Fleischmann's book compares favourably with those of other naturalists, in that he does not contrast“Moses”and natural science, as is customary, but has a deeper knowledge of the modern view of Genesis I. than is usually found among naturalists, whether of the“positive”or“negative”standpoint.41.See also Wolff.42.See C.C. Coe,“Nature versus Natural Selection,”London, 1895. Perhaps the most comprehensive, many-sided, critical analysis of the theory of natural selection. See also Herbert Spencer,“The Inadequacy of Natural Selection,”1893.43.Leipzig, 1888, 1897, 1901. In part translated as“Organic Evolution.”We are here mainly concerned with Vols. I. and III. Later on we shall have to discuss Vol. II.44.Wien, 1899.45.See Wettstein,“Neolamarckism,”Jena, 1902. See also Demoor, Massart, Vandervelde,“L'Evolution régressive en Biologie et Sociologie,”Paris, 1897. Bibliothèque scientific internationale, vol. lxxxv. This work is on the Lamarckian basis. It is original in applying Lamarckian principles to a theory of society.46.Two vols., Leipzig, 1901 and 1902.47.It remains open to question whether Eimer's explanation is sufficient in all cases, even those of the exaggeratedly deceptive copies of leaves or bark, or the colour of the environment. It is certainly not the sorry explanation in terms of“Variation and Selection,”but that of a spontaneous imitation of the surroundings, that forces itself irresistibly upon us in this connection.48.Jena, 1892 and 1895.49.See Reinke,“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie,”1901, especially pp. 463 onwards on“Phylogenetisches Bildungspotential.”von Wettstein (On direct adaptation),“Neolamarkismus,”Jena, 1902.Cf.“Wissensch-Beiträge zum 15 Jahresberichte (1902) der Philos. Gesellschaft an der Universität zu Wien: Vorträge und Besprechungen über die Krisis der Darwinismus.”M. Kassowitz,“Allgemeine Biologie,”I. and II., 1899. O. Hertwig,“Entwicklung der Biologie im 19. Jahrhundert.”Wiesner,“Elemente der wissenschaftlichen Botanik.”(cf.especially III.“Biologie der Pflanzen”), and on p. 288 the summary of propositions which are very similar to those formulated later by Korschinsky. (“Auf Grund des den Organismen innewohnenden Vervollkommnungstriebes.”)50.See the particularly beautiful and suggestive experiments of Haberlandt:“Experimentelle Hervorrufung eines neuen Organs.”In“Festschrift für Schwendener,”Berlin Borntraeger, 1899.51.See“Nature,”1891, p. 44152.See“Nature,”1891, p. 441.53.The variation-increment of the selection theory ought to be a differential. But in many cases it is not so. As for instance in symmetrical correlated variation, &c. In the struggle for existence it is usually not advantages of organisation which are decisive, but the chance advantages of situation, though these have no“selective”influence. The case of the tapeworm is illustrative.His work,“Die organischen Regulationen, Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie des Lebens,”1901, is a systematic survey of illustrations of the“autonomy”of vital processes. In his“Analytischen Theorie der organischen Entwicklung,”Leipzig, 1894, his special biological (“ontogenetic”) views are still in process of development. But even here his sharp rejection of Darwinism is complete (see VI., Par. 3, on“the absurd assumption of a contingent character of morphogenesis”). It is not for nothing that the book is dedicated to Wigand and C. F. von Baer. He says that in regard to development we must“picture to ourselves external agents acting as stimuli and achieving transformations which have the character, not analysable as to its causes, of being adapted to their end, that is, capable of life.”Incomplete, but very instructive too, are his discussions on the causal and the teleological outlook, the necessity for both, and the impossibility of eliminating the latter from the study of nature. In a series of subsequent works, Driesch has defined and strengthened this position, finally reaching the declaration:“Darwin belongs to history, just like that other curiosity of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both are variations on the theme,‘How to lead a whole generation by the nose!’”(“Biolog. Zentralbl.”1896, p. 16). We are concerned with Driesch more particularly in Chapter IX.54.See Driesch“Kritisches und Polemisches,”Biol. Zentrabl., 1902, p. 187, Note 2.55.“Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift,”xiv., p. 273.56.See § 70 and subsequent sections. Take, for instance, the sentences:—“Every production of material things and of their forms must be interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws,”and the contrast:“Some products of material nature cannot be interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws.”57.To Aristotle the“Soul”(ψυχὴ ϕυτική Psyche, phytike) was in the first place a purely biological principle. But by means of his elastic formula of Potentiality and Actuality he was able to make the transition to the psychological with apparent ease. The biological is to him in“potentiality”what sensation, impulse, imagination are in“realisation.”But the biological and the psychological are not related to one another as stages. Growth, form, development, &c., cannot be carried over through any“actualisatio”into sensation, consciousness and the like.An essentially different question is, whether the biological may not be not indeed derivable from the psychological—that would be the same mistake—but dependent on, and conditioned by it, just as we regard the voluntary moving and directing of the body as dependent on it. An imaginative interpretation of the world will always take this course.58.Of course all this still gives us no ground for drawing conclusions as to the correctness of the mechanistic theory, but only affords a reason for its power of persistence. Indeed, the very fact that, in investigating the problem of life, instinct directs us towards mechanical interpretations, should give added weight to the other fact, that among the ranks of naturalists themselves there constantly arise doubts and criticisms of the adequacy of this mode of interpretation, and that many of them go over more or less completely to the vitalistic point of view.59.H. Helmholtz,“Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft, eine physikalische Abhandlung,”Berlin, 1847.60.Max Verworn,“Die Biogenhypothese,”Jena, 1903.Cf.criticisms by Czapek in the“Botanische Zeitung,”No. 2, 1903, and by Loeb in the“Biologisches Zentralblatt,”1902.61.Berlin, 1900. Edited by R. du Bois-Reymond.62.Bütschli,“Untersuchungen über microscopische Schäume und das Protoplasma,”Leipzig, 1892.Cf.Berthold,“Studien zur Protoplasmamechanik.”63.Rhumbler,“Zur Mechanik des Gastrulationvorganges ...”in“Archiv. f. Entwicklungsmechanik,”Bd. 14.64.“Bewegung der lebendigen Substanz.”Jena, 1892.65.A short, very attractive description of these mechanical methods, and one which appeals particularly to us laymen because of its excellent illustrations, is Dreyer's“Ziele und Wege biologischer Forschung”(Jena, 1892), especially the first part,“Die Flüssigkeitsmechanik als eine Grundlage der organischen Form- und Gerüst-Bildung.”The astonishing and fascinating forms of Radiolarian frameworks and“skeletons”(the artistic appreciation of which was made possible to a wider public by Haeckel's“Kunstformen der Natur”) are here made the subject of mechanical explanations, which are certainly in a high degree plausible.66.Cf.Roux,“Archiv. fur Entwicklungsmechanik.”The name sufficiently indicates the scope.67.For a discussion of the difficulties and impossibilities of this theory see page148above.68.“Preformation oder Epigenesis?”Outlines of a theory of the development of organisms. Jena, 1894. (Part I. of“Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie.”) Translated by P. Chalmers Mitchell,“The Biological Problem of To-day.”69.In his earlier period. Later he rejects both preformation and epigenesis, as mechanical distortions of vital processes.70.See also Lotze's interesting article“Instinct”in the same work.71.Part II. of his“Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie.”72.Second Edition, 1902.73.In Vol. II. p. 139. 1898.74.“General Physiology.”Translated by Lee. London. 1899. P. 170.75.As a remarkable instance and corroboration of this, we may refer to the ever-recurring, instinctive antipathy of deeply religious temperaments, from Augustine to Luther and Schleiermacher, to the Aristotelian mood and its conception of the world, and their sympathy with Plato's (mostly and especially in their“Platonised”expressions). The clear-cut, luminous, conception of the world which expresses everything in terms of commensurable concepts is thoroughly Aristotelian. But it would be difficult to find a place in it for the peculiar element which lies at the root of all true devotional feeling, and which makes faith something more than the highest“reverence, love and trust.”76.“Arch. für pathol. Anatomie und Physiologie,”Bd. VIII. 1855.77.Vol. IX., 1856.78.The same is true even of crystals,“omne crystallum e crystallo.”79.Cf.“Ueber die Aufgabe der Naturwissenschaft,”Jena, 1876.“Naturwissenschaftliche Tatsachen und Probleme.”“Physiologie und Entwicklungslehre,”1886, in the collection of the“Allgemeiner Vereins für Deutsche Literatur.”Also in the same collection,“Aus Natur- und Menschen-leben.”80.These ideas are not fully worked out, and they are disguised in poetic form—for instance, when even the play of flames is compared to vital processes. But if they be stripped of their poetic garb, they lead to the same conclusions to which one is always led when one approaches the problem unprejudiced by naturalistic or anthropomorphic preconceptions of the relation of the infinite to the finite, or the divine to the natural. If we exclude the materialistic or semi-materialistic position which regards teleological phenomena, vital processes, and even states of sensation and consciousness as the function of a“substance”or of matter, we can quite well speak of them as general“cosmo-organic”functions of universal being, meaning that they occur of necessity wherever the proper conditions exist. According to the doctrine of potentiality and actuality, this is to say that all possible stages of the higher and highest phenomena aresemper et ubiquepotentially present in universal being, and that they become actual wherever the physical processes are far enough advanced to afford the necessary conditions.Preyer's ideas have been revived of late, especially in the romantic form, as, for instance, in Willy Pastor's“Lebensgeschichte der Erde”(“Leben und Wissen,”Vol. I., Leipzig, 1903). And in certain circles, characterised by a simultaneous veneration for and combination of modern natural science—Haeckel, Romanticism, Novalis and other antitheses—Fechner appears to have come to life again. The type of this group is W. Bölsche. Naturally enough, Pastor has turned his attention also to the recent views of Schroen in regard to crystallisation. The fact,omne crystallum e crystallo, like the corresponding fact,omne vivum e vivo, was long a barrier against mechanistic derivation. But Schroen draws a parallel between crystallisation and organic processes, so that the alleged clearness and obviousness of the inorganic can no longer be carried over—in the old fashion—into the realm of life, but, conversely, the mystery of life must be extended downwards, and continued into the inorganic.81.Worthy of note and much cited is a somewhat indefinite essay on“Neovitalism,”by the Wurzburg pathologist, E. von Rindfleisch (in“Deutsche Medizinische Wochensehrift,”1895, No. 38).82.Already given in detail in his“Lehrbuch der phys. und pathol. Chemie”(Second Edition, 1889), in the first chapter,“Vitalism and Mechanism.”In the meantime a fifth revised and enlarged edition of Bunge's book has appeared as a“Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen”(Leipzig, 1901), The relevant early essays appear here again under the title“Idealism and Mechanism.”The arguments are the same. It is often supposed that it is merely a question of time, and that in the long run we must succeed in finding proofs that the whole process of life is only a complex process of movement; but the history of physiology shows that the contrary is the case. All the processes which can be explained mechanically are those which are not vital phenomena at all. It is in activity that the riddle of life lies. The solution of this riddle is looked for, more decidedly than before but still somewhat vaguely, in the“idealism”of self-consciousness and its implications,“Physiologus nemo nisi psychologus.”These views have been also stated in a separate lecture: G. Bunge,“Vitalismus und Mechanismus,”(Leipzig, 1886).83.“Allgemeine Biologie”(2 vols.), Vienna, 1899.84.Jena, 1903.85.Cf.especially Verworn's example of the manufacture of sulphuric acid. See what we have previously said on the“second line”of mechanistic theory, along which Neumeister's thought mainly moves. See especially p. 198. As regards the“fifth line,”the problem of the development of form in its present phase, there is an instructive short essay by Fr. Merkel (Nachrichten der K. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Göttingen. Geschäftl. Mitt. 1897, Heft 2)—“Welche Kräfte wirken gestaltend auf den Körper der Menschen und Tiere?”This essay avoids, obviously intentionally, the shibboleths of controversy. The mechanical point of view and the play with mechanical analogies and models are abruptly dismissed.“If things, which were in themselves susceptible of mechanical explanations, occur in the absence of the mechanical antecedent conditions, then we must seek for other forces to enable us to understand them.”And quite calmly a return is made to the old, simple conception of a“regulative”and a“formative force,”inherent as a capacitysui generiswithin the“energids,”the really living parts of the cell. The cell-energid carries within it the“pattern”of the organisation, and the partial or perfect“capacity”(“Fertigkeit”) for producing and reproducing the whole organism. But these two forces“make use of”the physico-chemical forces as tools to work out details. So to describe the state of the case is not of course a solution of the problem; it is only a figurative formulation of it. But that, at the present day, we can and must return to doing this if we are to describe things simply and as they actually occur, is precisely what is most instructive in the matter.86.“Beiträge zur Kritik der Darwinschen Lehre,”which was first published in the“Biologisches Zentralblatt,”1898.87.Leipzig, 1892.88.Before Wigand's larger works there had appeared F. Delpino:“Applicazione della Teoria Darwinia ai Fiori ed agli Insetti Visitatori dei Fiori”(Bull. della Societa Entomologica Ital., Florence 1870). He says:“Un principio intrinsico, reagente, finchè dura la vita, contro le influenze estrinseche ossia contro gli agenti chimici e fisici.”89.“Elemente der Wissenschaftlichen Botanik. Biologie der Pflanzen.”1889.90.“Lehrbuch der Biologie der Pflanzen.”Stuttgart, 1895.91.Cf.Cohn,“Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen,”vii. 407, See especially the concluding chapter,“Einiges über Functionen der einzelnen Zellorgane.”From Zoology we may cite E. Teichmann's investigation,“Ueber die Beziehung zwischen Astrosphären und Furchen.”“Experimentelle Untersuchungen am Seeigelei”(“Archiv. f. Entw. Mech.”xvi. 2, 1903). This paper contains no references to“psychical phenomena,”“power,”or“will,”and we cannot but approve of this in technical research. But it is pointed out that the mechanistic interpretation of the detailed processes of development has definite limitations, and we are referred to“fundamental characters of living matter which we must take for granted.”This is even more decidedly the case in Tad. Garbowski's beautiful“Morphogenetische Studien, als Beitrag zur Methodologie zoologischer Forschung.”These belong to the line of thought followed by Driesch and Wolff, who are both frequently and approvingly quoted, and they afford an excellent instance of that mood of dissatisfaction with and protest against the“dogmas”of descent, selection and phylogeny, which is observable in many quarters among the younger generation of investigators. Garbowski vigorously combats Haeckel's theories of development, especially“the fundamental biogenetic law, and the Gastræa theory.”He criticises“mechanistic”interpretations of the development of the embryo, which“treat the living being morphologically, as if the matter were one of vesicles, cylinders and plates, and not of vital units”: and he does not look with favour on“artificial amoebæ,”which can move, creep, and do everything except live. The ideal of biology is of course always a science with laws and equations, but the key to these will not be found in mechanics. Garbowski's studies may be highly recommended as giving a sharp and vivid impression of the modern anti-mechanistic tendencies observable even in technical research.92.Trans. by Levinsohn.“Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung,”Munich, 1898, No. 166.93.Bütschli,op. cit., p. 200.94.“The Monist,”1899, p. 179.95.Cf.“Entwicklung der Biologie in 19. Jahrhundert”(“Naturforscher Versammlung,”1900), and“Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie,”1894-7, especially Part II.,“Mechanik und Zoologie.”96.“Die Organismen und ihr Ursprung,”published in“Nord und Süd,”xviii., p. 201seq.—“Die Welt als Tat,”Berlin 1899, since then in second edition.—“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie,”1901.—And“Der Ursprung des Lebens auf der Erde,”in the“Türmer-Jahrbuch,”1903.97.Cf., the discussion by A. Drews in the“Preuss. Jahrbuch,”October, 1902, p. 101, a review of Reinke's“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie.”98.Of all the bad Greek zoology has produced,“Ontogenesis”is probably the worst. The Becoming of the Being! The word is used in contrast to Phylogenesis, the becoming of the race or of the species, and it denotes the development of the individual.99.Cf.p. 130. Excellent observations on“purpose.”If two or more chains of causes meet, we call it“chance;”if they do so constantly and in a typical manner, we call it“purpose.”100.“Biolog. Centralbl.,”1896, p. 363.101.“Die Lokalisation (= spatial determination) morphogenetischer Vorgänge, ein Beweis vitalistischen Geschehens,”1899 (in“Archiv. f. Entw.-Mechanik,”viii., 1, and separately published), and“Die organischen Regulationen: Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie des Lebens,”Leipzig, 1901. Also“Die‘Seele’als elementarer Natur-factor,”(studies on the movements of organisms), Leipzig, 1903. He gives a general review of his own evolution in the“Süddeutsche Monatshefte,”January 1904, under the title“Die Selbständigkeit der Biologie und ihre Probleme.”102.In the“Biol. Zentralbl.,”June 1903, p. 427, Driesch is criticised by Moszkowski, who rejects Driesch's teleological standpoint. But even this criticism shows us how far the untenability of the mechanistic position has been recognised. It is based upon a somewhat vague dynamism, which admits that the physico-chemical and all other mechanical interpretations have been destructively criticised by Driesch, and recognises entelechy (“ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸ τέλος ἔχον”). An entelechy without τέλος!103.“Vorfragen der Biologie,”1899.“Die‘Ueberwindung des Mechanismus’in der Biologie.”“Biolog. Zentralbl.,”1901, p. 130.104.Cf.Tad. Garbowski,“Morphogenetische Studien,”p. 167. The illustration here employed of the arc and the“explanation of form by form”would be a good criticism of many of Albrecht's statements.105.Schneider has expounded his physiological and morphological view in his“Comparative Histology.”In“Vitalismus”(“Elementare Lebensfunctionen,”Vienna, 1903) he sums up his vitalistic views. It is a comprehensive work which goes deeper than others of its class into the detailed description and analysis of the intimate phenomena of life. Indeed it almost amounts to an independent biology. But the most essential vital problems, the development of form, regeneration, and inheritance, to which Driesch gives the fullest consideration, are all too briefly treated. In Chapters XI. and XII. the question of vitalism expands into a far-reaching discussion of the general outlook upon nature. We need not here concern ourselves with his more general views. Schneider must be regarded as a representative of the most modern tendency of“Psychism,”which, stimulated by Mach, Avenarius, and the school of“immanence-philosophy,”finds expression among the younger physiologists and biologists, from Schneider to Driesch, Verworn, Albrecht, and others. To overthrow“materialism”and“realism,”they utilise, with impetuous delight, the ancient self-evident idea that what is given to us is sensation. They confuse and identify such opposites as Kant and Berkeley, and their own position with that of“solipsism.”This outlook is still vague and vacillating, and it may perhaps compel epistemology to return on its old path from the sophists to Plato, from Hume to Kant. In Schneider's case, however, the thin stream of this new sensualism is intermingled with so many intuitions and perceptions of the deeper nature of knowledge that one is now curious to know how this strange mixture of semi-materialism, idealism, solipsism, and a priorism is to make the transition from its present extremely labile phase to a condition of stable equilibrium. One fears lest sooner or later a reaction against the contortions of this empiricism and psychism should lead to a modern rehabilitation of mysticism or occultism. (Cf.p. 295 ff.)In an essay on“Vitalism”in the“Preuss. Jahrbuch,”Aug. 1903, p. 276, Schneider has supplemented his previous work.106.If the protest of natural science against these means no more than that they should be excluded as inaccessible to scientific understanding, from the domain of its investigation, but not from reality, it is perhaps fully justified in its methods.107.Though somewhat inconsequent, since at any rate the enthusiasm for truth could not result from a naturalistic, but only from some kind of idealistic basis.108.Schleiermacher,“Reden über die Religion,”ii.
Footnotes1.This has been urged often enough even by scientific investigators. In such cases they have frequently been reproached for dragging miracles into nature when they call a halt in face of the“underivable”and the“mysterious.”This is a complete misunderstanding. With miracles and with the supernatural in the historical sense of these words, this mode of regarding nature has nothing whatever to do. It would be much more reasonable to maintain the converse: that there exists between supernatural ideas and the belief in the absolute explicability and rationalisation of nature a peculiar mutual relation and attraction. For, if we think out the relation clearly, we must see that all real and consistent belief in miracles demands as its most effective background the clearest possible explicability of nature. It pictures to itself two natures, so to speak: nature and supernature, and the latter of these interpolates itself into the former in the form of sudden and occasional interruptions; that is to say, as miracles. The purpose of miracles is to be recognised as such, as events absolutely different from the ordinary course of happening. And they are most likely thus to be recognised when nature itself is translucent and mathematical. Thus we find that supernaturalism quite readily accepts, and even insists upon a rationalistic explanation of nature. But this is quite incorrect. Nature is not so thoroughly rationalised and calculable as such a point of view would have us believe.The really religious element in belief in miracles is that it, too, in its own way, is seeking after mystery, dependence and providence. It fails because it naïvely seeks for these in isolated and exceptional acts, which have no analogy to other phenomena. It regards these as arbitrary acts, and does so because it overlooks or underestimates the fact that they have to be reckoned with throughout the whole of nature.2.Not even after the scholastic manner of regarding eternity as a“nunc stans,”a stationary now, an everlasting present.“Present”is a moment in our own time, and an“everlasting”present is nonsense.3.“Reden über die Religion, an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern.”Neu herausgegeben von R. Otto. 1906.4.Kgl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1876.5.Some of these subsidiary factors are difficult to harmonise with the main principle of selection; they endanger it or it endangers them, as we shall see when we consider the controversies within the Darwinian camp.6.H. Friedmann,“Die Konvergenz der Organismen,”Berlin, 1904.7.It is somewhat confusing that even Weismann in his most recent work professes to give“Lectures on the Theory of Descent,”and in reality only assumes it, concerning himself with the Darwinian theory in the strict sense. The English translation is more correctly entitled“The Evolution Theory.”8.Cf.Wagner,“Zur gegenwärtigen Lage des Darwinismus.”“Die Umschau,”January, 1900.9.Eugen Dubois (Military Surgeon of the Dutch Army),“Pithecanthropus erectus, a man-like transition-form from Java.”Batavia. 1904.10.H. Friedenthal.“Ueber einen experimentellen Nachweis von Blutsverwandtschaft.”Archiv. f. Anatomie und Physiologie, 1900, p. 404.11.Jena, 1904. Trans.“The Evolution Theory,”Arnold. London 1904.12.A defence of this very confident Darwinian point of view, for the benefit of non-scientific readers, will be found in the recent“Gemeinverständlichen darwinistischen Vorträgen und Abhandlungen,”by Plate, Simroth, Schmidt, and others. See also Ziegler's“Ueber den derzcitigen Stand der Descendenzlehre in der Zoologie.”13.“Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit,”Festschrift für Bastian, p. 9.14.“Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit,”Festschrift für Bastian, p. 6.15.“Sammlung gemeinverständl. Vorträge, hrsg. v. Virchow und Holtzendorf,”Heft 96.“Menschen und Affenschädel,”Berlin, 1870.16.“Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,”1882, p. 276.17.“Verh. Berlin anthropolog. Gesellschaft iv.”(1872), p. 132. It does, however, appear strange to the lay mind that it should have been only the pathological subjects of prehistoric times that had their remains preserved for our modern study.18.Cf.“Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,”1895, pp. 78, 735.19.Cf.“Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit.”Festschrift für Bastian, 1895.20.See also“Descendenz und Pathologie.”Arch. f. path. Anat. a. Physiol., 1886;“Transformation und Abstammung.”Berliner Klin. Wochenschrift, 1893.21.First edition, Leipzig, 1887. A second edition and an English translation have since been published. See especially the discussion of the origin and history of species in the second volume.22.See English translation of Kerner's Plant Life.23.Cf.a criticism of the book from the Darwinian point of view by Plate in Biologisches Centralblatt, 1901.24.That this points only to the fact of evolution, and not necessarily to actual descent, will be seen later on.25.First edition, 1899; now in a second edition.26.“Genealogie der Urzellen als Lösung des Descendenzproblems”(1872), and“Der Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newtons und Cuviers”(1874-1877).27.“Eine kritische Darstellung der modernen Entwicklungslehre,”Jena, 1892.28.Compare Darwin's derivation of fishes from Tunicata because of the notochord which occurs in the tunicate larvæ.29.See Hertwig's“Biological Problem of To-day.”London 1896.30.The justice of this prophecy has been meanwhile illustrated by the recent work of H. Friedmann,“Die Konvergenz der Organismen,”Berlin, 1904.31.If we wish to, we can even read the“biogenetic law”in Dante. See“Purgatory,”p. 26, where the embryo attains successively to the plant, animal and human stages:“Anima fatta la virtute attiva,Qual d'unapianta....Come fungo marino ...Ma comed'animaldivengafante.”This is, of course, nothing else than Aristotle's theory of evolution, done into terzarima, and corrected by St. Thomas.For the latest application of these views, even in relation to the“biogenetic fundamental law,”see the finely finished“Morpho-genetic Studies”of T. Garbowski (Jena, 1903):“The greater part of what is usually referred to the so-called fundamental biogenetic law depends on illusion, since all things undeveloped or imperfect must bear a greater or less resemblance one to another.”32.I.e., The occurrence of saltatory, transilient, or discontinuous variations or mutations.33.I.e., The emergence of a distinctively new pattern of organisation.34.See H. G. Bronn's Appendix to his translation of Darwin's“Origin of Species.”First German edition.35.Finally and comprehensively in the two volumes we have already mentioned,“Vorträge über die Deszendenztheorie,”Jena, 1902 (Eng. trans., London, 1904).“Natural selection depends essentially upon the cumulative augmentation of the most minute useful variations in the direction of their utility; only the useful is developed and increased, and great effects are brought about slowly through the summing up of many very minute steps.... But the philosophical significance of natural selection lies in the fact that it shows us how to explain the origin of useful, well-adapted structures purely by mechanical factors, and without having to fall back upon a directive principle.”36.If it were not white it would be observed by the seals, which would thus avoid being devoured by it. See Weismann, I., p. 70. (English edition, p. 65.)37.It is almost comical when Weismann, the champion of the purely naturalistic outlook, occasionally forgets his rôle altogether, and puts in a word for“chance,”or attempts to soften absolute predetermination. For if even a single wolf should destroy a stag“by chance,”or if a single“id”should“chance”to grow in a manner slightly different from that laid down for it by the compelling force of preceding and accompanying circumstances, the whole Darwinian edifice would be labour lost.38.See Darwin,“... chance variations. Unless such occur, natural selection can do nothing.”39.“Die Darwinsehe Theorie. Gemeinverständliche Vorlesungen über die Naturphilosophie der Gegenwart gehalten vor Studierenden aller Fakultäten,”Leipzig, 1903. This book is the continuation of the author's“Deszendenztheorie.”40.Fleischmann's book compares favourably with those of other naturalists, in that he does not contrast“Moses”and natural science, as is customary, but has a deeper knowledge of the modern view of Genesis I. than is usually found among naturalists, whether of the“positive”or“negative”standpoint.41.See also Wolff.42.See C.C. Coe,“Nature versus Natural Selection,”London, 1895. Perhaps the most comprehensive, many-sided, critical analysis of the theory of natural selection. See also Herbert Spencer,“The Inadequacy of Natural Selection,”1893.43.Leipzig, 1888, 1897, 1901. In part translated as“Organic Evolution.”We are here mainly concerned with Vols. I. and III. Later on we shall have to discuss Vol. II.44.Wien, 1899.45.See Wettstein,“Neolamarckism,”Jena, 1902. See also Demoor, Massart, Vandervelde,“L'Evolution régressive en Biologie et Sociologie,”Paris, 1897. Bibliothèque scientific internationale, vol. lxxxv. This work is on the Lamarckian basis. It is original in applying Lamarckian principles to a theory of society.46.Two vols., Leipzig, 1901 and 1902.47.It remains open to question whether Eimer's explanation is sufficient in all cases, even those of the exaggeratedly deceptive copies of leaves or bark, or the colour of the environment. It is certainly not the sorry explanation in terms of“Variation and Selection,”but that of a spontaneous imitation of the surroundings, that forces itself irresistibly upon us in this connection.48.Jena, 1892 and 1895.49.See Reinke,“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie,”1901, especially pp. 463 onwards on“Phylogenetisches Bildungspotential.”von Wettstein (On direct adaptation),“Neolamarkismus,”Jena, 1902.Cf.“Wissensch-Beiträge zum 15 Jahresberichte (1902) der Philos. Gesellschaft an der Universität zu Wien: Vorträge und Besprechungen über die Krisis der Darwinismus.”M. Kassowitz,“Allgemeine Biologie,”I. and II., 1899. O. Hertwig,“Entwicklung der Biologie im 19. Jahrhundert.”Wiesner,“Elemente der wissenschaftlichen Botanik.”(cf.especially III.“Biologie der Pflanzen”), and on p. 288 the summary of propositions which are very similar to those formulated later by Korschinsky. (“Auf Grund des den Organismen innewohnenden Vervollkommnungstriebes.”)50.See the particularly beautiful and suggestive experiments of Haberlandt:“Experimentelle Hervorrufung eines neuen Organs.”In“Festschrift für Schwendener,”Berlin Borntraeger, 1899.51.See“Nature,”1891, p. 44152.See“Nature,”1891, p. 441.53.The variation-increment of the selection theory ought to be a differential. But in many cases it is not so. As for instance in symmetrical correlated variation, &c. In the struggle for existence it is usually not advantages of organisation which are decisive, but the chance advantages of situation, though these have no“selective”influence. The case of the tapeworm is illustrative.His work,“Die organischen Regulationen, Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie des Lebens,”1901, is a systematic survey of illustrations of the“autonomy”of vital processes. In his“Analytischen Theorie der organischen Entwicklung,”Leipzig, 1894, his special biological (“ontogenetic”) views are still in process of development. But even here his sharp rejection of Darwinism is complete (see VI., Par. 3, on“the absurd assumption of a contingent character of morphogenesis”). It is not for nothing that the book is dedicated to Wigand and C. F. von Baer. He says that in regard to development we must“picture to ourselves external agents acting as stimuli and achieving transformations which have the character, not analysable as to its causes, of being adapted to their end, that is, capable of life.”Incomplete, but very instructive too, are his discussions on the causal and the teleological outlook, the necessity for both, and the impossibility of eliminating the latter from the study of nature. In a series of subsequent works, Driesch has defined and strengthened this position, finally reaching the declaration:“Darwin belongs to history, just like that other curiosity of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both are variations on the theme,‘How to lead a whole generation by the nose!’”(“Biolog. Zentralbl.”1896, p. 16). We are concerned with Driesch more particularly in Chapter IX.54.See Driesch“Kritisches und Polemisches,”Biol. Zentrabl., 1902, p. 187, Note 2.55.“Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift,”xiv., p. 273.56.See § 70 and subsequent sections. Take, for instance, the sentences:—“Every production of material things and of their forms must be interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws,”and the contrast:“Some products of material nature cannot be interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws.”57.To Aristotle the“Soul”(ψυχὴ ϕυτική Psyche, phytike) was in the first place a purely biological principle. But by means of his elastic formula of Potentiality and Actuality he was able to make the transition to the psychological with apparent ease. The biological is to him in“potentiality”what sensation, impulse, imagination are in“realisation.”But the biological and the psychological are not related to one another as stages. Growth, form, development, &c., cannot be carried over through any“actualisatio”into sensation, consciousness and the like.An essentially different question is, whether the biological may not be not indeed derivable from the psychological—that would be the same mistake—but dependent on, and conditioned by it, just as we regard the voluntary moving and directing of the body as dependent on it. An imaginative interpretation of the world will always take this course.58.Of course all this still gives us no ground for drawing conclusions as to the correctness of the mechanistic theory, but only affords a reason for its power of persistence. Indeed, the very fact that, in investigating the problem of life, instinct directs us towards mechanical interpretations, should give added weight to the other fact, that among the ranks of naturalists themselves there constantly arise doubts and criticisms of the adequacy of this mode of interpretation, and that many of them go over more or less completely to the vitalistic point of view.59.H. Helmholtz,“Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft, eine physikalische Abhandlung,”Berlin, 1847.60.Max Verworn,“Die Biogenhypothese,”Jena, 1903.Cf.criticisms by Czapek in the“Botanische Zeitung,”No. 2, 1903, and by Loeb in the“Biologisches Zentralblatt,”1902.61.Berlin, 1900. Edited by R. du Bois-Reymond.62.Bütschli,“Untersuchungen über microscopische Schäume und das Protoplasma,”Leipzig, 1892.Cf.Berthold,“Studien zur Protoplasmamechanik.”63.Rhumbler,“Zur Mechanik des Gastrulationvorganges ...”in“Archiv. f. Entwicklungsmechanik,”Bd. 14.64.“Bewegung der lebendigen Substanz.”Jena, 1892.65.A short, very attractive description of these mechanical methods, and one which appeals particularly to us laymen because of its excellent illustrations, is Dreyer's“Ziele und Wege biologischer Forschung”(Jena, 1892), especially the first part,“Die Flüssigkeitsmechanik als eine Grundlage der organischen Form- und Gerüst-Bildung.”The astonishing and fascinating forms of Radiolarian frameworks and“skeletons”(the artistic appreciation of which was made possible to a wider public by Haeckel's“Kunstformen der Natur”) are here made the subject of mechanical explanations, which are certainly in a high degree plausible.66.Cf.Roux,“Archiv. fur Entwicklungsmechanik.”The name sufficiently indicates the scope.67.For a discussion of the difficulties and impossibilities of this theory see page148above.68.“Preformation oder Epigenesis?”Outlines of a theory of the development of organisms. Jena, 1894. (Part I. of“Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie.”) Translated by P. Chalmers Mitchell,“The Biological Problem of To-day.”69.In his earlier period. Later he rejects both preformation and epigenesis, as mechanical distortions of vital processes.70.See also Lotze's interesting article“Instinct”in the same work.71.Part II. of his“Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie.”72.Second Edition, 1902.73.In Vol. II. p. 139. 1898.74.“General Physiology.”Translated by Lee. London. 1899. P. 170.75.As a remarkable instance and corroboration of this, we may refer to the ever-recurring, instinctive antipathy of deeply religious temperaments, from Augustine to Luther and Schleiermacher, to the Aristotelian mood and its conception of the world, and their sympathy with Plato's (mostly and especially in their“Platonised”expressions). The clear-cut, luminous, conception of the world which expresses everything in terms of commensurable concepts is thoroughly Aristotelian. But it would be difficult to find a place in it for the peculiar element which lies at the root of all true devotional feeling, and which makes faith something more than the highest“reverence, love and trust.”76.“Arch. für pathol. Anatomie und Physiologie,”Bd. VIII. 1855.77.Vol. IX., 1856.78.The same is true even of crystals,“omne crystallum e crystallo.”79.Cf.“Ueber die Aufgabe der Naturwissenschaft,”Jena, 1876.“Naturwissenschaftliche Tatsachen und Probleme.”“Physiologie und Entwicklungslehre,”1886, in the collection of the“Allgemeiner Vereins für Deutsche Literatur.”Also in the same collection,“Aus Natur- und Menschen-leben.”80.These ideas are not fully worked out, and they are disguised in poetic form—for instance, when even the play of flames is compared to vital processes. But if they be stripped of their poetic garb, they lead to the same conclusions to which one is always led when one approaches the problem unprejudiced by naturalistic or anthropomorphic preconceptions of the relation of the infinite to the finite, or the divine to the natural. If we exclude the materialistic or semi-materialistic position which regards teleological phenomena, vital processes, and even states of sensation and consciousness as the function of a“substance”or of matter, we can quite well speak of them as general“cosmo-organic”functions of universal being, meaning that they occur of necessity wherever the proper conditions exist. According to the doctrine of potentiality and actuality, this is to say that all possible stages of the higher and highest phenomena aresemper et ubiquepotentially present in universal being, and that they become actual wherever the physical processes are far enough advanced to afford the necessary conditions.Preyer's ideas have been revived of late, especially in the romantic form, as, for instance, in Willy Pastor's“Lebensgeschichte der Erde”(“Leben und Wissen,”Vol. I., Leipzig, 1903). And in certain circles, characterised by a simultaneous veneration for and combination of modern natural science—Haeckel, Romanticism, Novalis and other antitheses—Fechner appears to have come to life again. The type of this group is W. Bölsche. Naturally enough, Pastor has turned his attention also to the recent views of Schroen in regard to crystallisation. The fact,omne crystallum e crystallo, like the corresponding fact,omne vivum e vivo, was long a barrier against mechanistic derivation. But Schroen draws a parallel between crystallisation and organic processes, so that the alleged clearness and obviousness of the inorganic can no longer be carried over—in the old fashion—into the realm of life, but, conversely, the mystery of life must be extended downwards, and continued into the inorganic.81.Worthy of note and much cited is a somewhat indefinite essay on“Neovitalism,”by the Wurzburg pathologist, E. von Rindfleisch (in“Deutsche Medizinische Wochensehrift,”1895, No. 38).82.Already given in detail in his“Lehrbuch der phys. und pathol. Chemie”(Second Edition, 1889), in the first chapter,“Vitalism and Mechanism.”In the meantime a fifth revised and enlarged edition of Bunge's book has appeared as a“Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen”(Leipzig, 1901), The relevant early essays appear here again under the title“Idealism and Mechanism.”The arguments are the same. It is often supposed that it is merely a question of time, and that in the long run we must succeed in finding proofs that the whole process of life is only a complex process of movement; but the history of physiology shows that the contrary is the case. All the processes which can be explained mechanically are those which are not vital phenomena at all. It is in activity that the riddle of life lies. The solution of this riddle is looked for, more decidedly than before but still somewhat vaguely, in the“idealism”of self-consciousness and its implications,“Physiologus nemo nisi psychologus.”These views have been also stated in a separate lecture: G. Bunge,“Vitalismus und Mechanismus,”(Leipzig, 1886).83.“Allgemeine Biologie”(2 vols.), Vienna, 1899.84.Jena, 1903.85.Cf.especially Verworn's example of the manufacture of sulphuric acid. See what we have previously said on the“second line”of mechanistic theory, along which Neumeister's thought mainly moves. See especially p. 198. As regards the“fifth line,”the problem of the development of form in its present phase, there is an instructive short essay by Fr. Merkel (Nachrichten der K. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Göttingen. Geschäftl. Mitt. 1897, Heft 2)—“Welche Kräfte wirken gestaltend auf den Körper der Menschen und Tiere?”This essay avoids, obviously intentionally, the shibboleths of controversy. The mechanical point of view and the play with mechanical analogies and models are abruptly dismissed.“If things, which were in themselves susceptible of mechanical explanations, occur in the absence of the mechanical antecedent conditions, then we must seek for other forces to enable us to understand them.”And quite calmly a return is made to the old, simple conception of a“regulative”and a“formative force,”inherent as a capacitysui generiswithin the“energids,”the really living parts of the cell. The cell-energid carries within it the“pattern”of the organisation, and the partial or perfect“capacity”(“Fertigkeit”) for producing and reproducing the whole organism. But these two forces“make use of”the physico-chemical forces as tools to work out details. So to describe the state of the case is not of course a solution of the problem; it is only a figurative formulation of it. But that, at the present day, we can and must return to doing this if we are to describe things simply and as they actually occur, is precisely what is most instructive in the matter.86.“Beiträge zur Kritik der Darwinschen Lehre,”which was first published in the“Biologisches Zentralblatt,”1898.87.Leipzig, 1892.88.Before Wigand's larger works there had appeared F. Delpino:“Applicazione della Teoria Darwinia ai Fiori ed agli Insetti Visitatori dei Fiori”(Bull. della Societa Entomologica Ital., Florence 1870). He says:“Un principio intrinsico, reagente, finchè dura la vita, contro le influenze estrinseche ossia contro gli agenti chimici e fisici.”89.“Elemente der Wissenschaftlichen Botanik. Biologie der Pflanzen.”1889.90.“Lehrbuch der Biologie der Pflanzen.”Stuttgart, 1895.91.Cf.Cohn,“Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen,”vii. 407, See especially the concluding chapter,“Einiges über Functionen der einzelnen Zellorgane.”From Zoology we may cite E. Teichmann's investigation,“Ueber die Beziehung zwischen Astrosphären und Furchen.”“Experimentelle Untersuchungen am Seeigelei”(“Archiv. f. Entw. Mech.”xvi. 2, 1903). This paper contains no references to“psychical phenomena,”“power,”or“will,”and we cannot but approve of this in technical research. But it is pointed out that the mechanistic interpretation of the detailed processes of development has definite limitations, and we are referred to“fundamental characters of living matter which we must take for granted.”This is even more decidedly the case in Tad. Garbowski's beautiful“Morphogenetische Studien, als Beitrag zur Methodologie zoologischer Forschung.”These belong to the line of thought followed by Driesch and Wolff, who are both frequently and approvingly quoted, and they afford an excellent instance of that mood of dissatisfaction with and protest against the“dogmas”of descent, selection and phylogeny, which is observable in many quarters among the younger generation of investigators. Garbowski vigorously combats Haeckel's theories of development, especially“the fundamental biogenetic law, and the Gastræa theory.”He criticises“mechanistic”interpretations of the development of the embryo, which“treat the living being morphologically, as if the matter were one of vesicles, cylinders and plates, and not of vital units”: and he does not look with favour on“artificial amoebæ,”which can move, creep, and do everything except live. The ideal of biology is of course always a science with laws and equations, but the key to these will not be found in mechanics. Garbowski's studies may be highly recommended as giving a sharp and vivid impression of the modern anti-mechanistic tendencies observable even in technical research.92.Trans. by Levinsohn.“Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung,”Munich, 1898, No. 166.93.Bütschli,op. cit., p. 200.94.“The Monist,”1899, p. 179.95.Cf.“Entwicklung der Biologie in 19. Jahrhundert”(“Naturforscher Versammlung,”1900), and“Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie,”1894-7, especially Part II.,“Mechanik und Zoologie.”96.“Die Organismen und ihr Ursprung,”published in“Nord und Süd,”xviii., p. 201seq.—“Die Welt als Tat,”Berlin 1899, since then in second edition.—“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie,”1901.—And“Der Ursprung des Lebens auf der Erde,”in the“Türmer-Jahrbuch,”1903.97.Cf., the discussion by A. Drews in the“Preuss. Jahrbuch,”October, 1902, p. 101, a review of Reinke's“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie.”98.Of all the bad Greek zoology has produced,“Ontogenesis”is probably the worst. The Becoming of the Being! The word is used in contrast to Phylogenesis, the becoming of the race or of the species, and it denotes the development of the individual.99.Cf.p. 130. Excellent observations on“purpose.”If two or more chains of causes meet, we call it“chance;”if they do so constantly and in a typical manner, we call it“purpose.”100.“Biolog. Centralbl.,”1896, p. 363.101.“Die Lokalisation (= spatial determination) morphogenetischer Vorgänge, ein Beweis vitalistischen Geschehens,”1899 (in“Archiv. f. Entw.-Mechanik,”viii., 1, and separately published), and“Die organischen Regulationen: Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie des Lebens,”Leipzig, 1901. Also“Die‘Seele’als elementarer Natur-factor,”(studies on the movements of organisms), Leipzig, 1903. He gives a general review of his own evolution in the“Süddeutsche Monatshefte,”January 1904, under the title“Die Selbständigkeit der Biologie und ihre Probleme.”102.In the“Biol. Zentralbl.,”June 1903, p. 427, Driesch is criticised by Moszkowski, who rejects Driesch's teleological standpoint. But even this criticism shows us how far the untenability of the mechanistic position has been recognised. It is based upon a somewhat vague dynamism, which admits that the physico-chemical and all other mechanical interpretations have been destructively criticised by Driesch, and recognises entelechy (“ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸ τέλος ἔχον”). An entelechy without τέλος!103.“Vorfragen der Biologie,”1899.“Die‘Ueberwindung des Mechanismus’in der Biologie.”“Biolog. Zentralbl.,”1901, p. 130.104.Cf.Tad. Garbowski,“Morphogenetische Studien,”p. 167. The illustration here employed of the arc and the“explanation of form by form”would be a good criticism of many of Albrecht's statements.105.Schneider has expounded his physiological and morphological view in his“Comparative Histology.”In“Vitalismus”(“Elementare Lebensfunctionen,”Vienna, 1903) he sums up his vitalistic views. It is a comprehensive work which goes deeper than others of its class into the detailed description and analysis of the intimate phenomena of life. Indeed it almost amounts to an independent biology. But the most essential vital problems, the development of form, regeneration, and inheritance, to which Driesch gives the fullest consideration, are all too briefly treated. In Chapters XI. and XII. the question of vitalism expands into a far-reaching discussion of the general outlook upon nature. We need not here concern ourselves with his more general views. Schneider must be regarded as a representative of the most modern tendency of“Psychism,”which, stimulated by Mach, Avenarius, and the school of“immanence-philosophy,”finds expression among the younger physiologists and biologists, from Schneider to Driesch, Verworn, Albrecht, and others. To overthrow“materialism”and“realism,”they utilise, with impetuous delight, the ancient self-evident idea that what is given to us is sensation. They confuse and identify such opposites as Kant and Berkeley, and their own position with that of“solipsism.”This outlook is still vague and vacillating, and it may perhaps compel epistemology to return on its old path from the sophists to Plato, from Hume to Kant. In Schneider's case, however, the thin stream of this new sensualism is intermingled with so many intuitions and perceptions of the deeper nature of knowledge that one is now curious to know how this strange mixture of semi-materialism, idealism, solipsism, and a priorism is to make the transition from its present extremely labile phase to a condition of stable equilibrium. One fears lest sooner or later a reaction against the contortions of this empiricism and psychism should lead to a modern rehabilitation of mysticism or occultism. (Cf.p. 295 ff.)In an essay on“Vitalism”in the“Preuss. Jahrbuch,”Aug. 1903, p. 276, Schneider has supplemented his previous work.106.If the protest of natural science against these means no more than that they should be excluded as inaccessible to scientific understanding, from the domain of its investigation, but not from reality, it is perhaps fully justified in its methods.107.Though somewhat inconsequent, since at any rate the enthusiasm for truth could not result from a naturalistic, but only from some kind of idealistic basis.108.Schleiermacher,“Reden über die Religion,”ii.
Footnotes1.This has been urged often enough even by scientific investigators. In such cases they have frequently been reproached for dragging miracles into nature when they call a halt in face of the“underivable”and the“mysterious.”This is a complete misunderstanding. With miracles and with the supernatural in the historical sense of these words, this mode of regarding nature has nothing whatever to do. It would be much more reasonable to maintain the converse: that there exists between supernatural ideas and the belief in the absolute explicability and rationalisation of nature a peculiar mutual relation and attraction. For, if we think out the relation clearly, we must see that all real and consistent belief in miracles demands as its most effective background the clearest possible explicability of nature. It pictures to itself two natures, so to speak: nature and supernature, and the latter of these interpolates itself into the former in the form of sudden and occasional interruptions; that is to say, as miracles. The purpose of miracles is to be recognised as such, as events absolutely different from the ordinary course of happening. And they are most likely thus to be recognised when nature itself is translucent and mathematical. Thus we find that supernaturalism quite readily accepts, and even insists upon a rationalistic explanation of nature. But this is quite incorrect. Nature is not so thoroughly rationalised and calculable as such a point of view would have us believe.The really religious element in belief in miracles is that it, too, in its own way, is seeking after mystery, dependence and providence. It fails because it naïvely seeks for these in isolated and exceptional acts, which have no analogy to other phenomena. It regards these as arbitrary acts, and does so because it overlooks or underestimates the fact that they have to be reckoned with throughout the whole of nature.2.Not even after the scholastic manner of regarding eternity as a“nunc stans,”a stationary now, an everlasting present.“Present”is a moment in our own time, and an“everlasting”present is nonsense.3.“Reden über die Religion, an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern.”Neu herausgegeben von R. Otto. 1906.4.Kgl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1876.5.Some of these subsidiary factors are difficult to harmonise with the main principle of selection; they endanger it or it endangers them, as we shall see when we consider the controversies within the Darwinian camp.6.H. Friedmann,“Die Konvergenz der Organismen,”Berlin, 1904.7.It is somewhat confusing that even Weismann in his most recent work professes to give“Lectures on the Theory of Descent,”and in reality only assumes it, concerning himself with the Darwinian theory in the strict sense. The English translation is more correctly entitled“The Evolution Theory.”8.Cf.Wagner,“Zur gegenwärtigen Lage des Darwinismus.”“Die Umschau,”January, 1900.9.Eugen Dubois (Military Surgeon of the Dutch Army),“Pithecanthropus erectus, a man-like transition-form from Java.”Batavia. 1904.10.H. Friedenthal.“Ueber einen experimentellen Nachweis von Blutsverwandtschaft.”Archiv. f. Anatomie und Physiologie, 1900, p. 404.11.Jena, 1904. Trans.“The Evolution Theory,”Arnold. London 1904.12.A defence of this very confident Darwinian point of view, for the benefit of non-scientific readers, will be found in the recent“Gemeinverständlichen darwinistischen Vorträgen und Abhandlungen,”by Plate, Simroth, Schmidt, and others. See also Ziegler's“Ueber den derzcitigen Stand der Descendenzlehre in der Zoologie.”13.“Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit,”Festschrift für Bastian, p. 9.14.“Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit,”Festschrift für Bastian, p. 6.15.“Sammlung gemeinverständl. Vorträge, hrsg. v. Virchow und Holtzendorf,”Heft 96.“Menschen und Affenschädel,”Berlin, 1870.16.“Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,”1882, p. 276.17.“Verh. Berlin anthropolog. Gesellschaft iv.”(1872), p. 132. It does, however, appear strange to the lay mind that it should have been only the pathological subjects of prehistoric times that had their remains preserved for our modern study.18.Cf.“Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,”1895, pp. 78, 735.19.Cf.“Rassenbildung und Erblichkeit.”Festschrift für Bastian, 1895.20.See also“Descendenz und Pathologie.”Arch. f. path. Anat. a. Physiol., 1886;“Transformation und Abstammung.”Berliner Klin. Wochenschrift, 1893.21.First edition, Leipzig, 1887. A second edition and an English translation have since been published. See especially the discussion of the origin and history of species in the second volume.22.See English translation of Kerner's Plant Life.23.Cf.a criticism of the book from the Darwinian point of view by Plate in Biologisches Centralblatt, 1901.24.That this points only to the fact of evolution, and not necessarily to actual descent, will be seen later on.25.First edition, 1899; now in a second edition.26.“Genealogie der Urzellen als Lösung des Descendenzproblems”(1872), and“Der Darwinismus und die Naturforschung Newtons und Cuviers”(1874-1877).27.“Eine kritische Darstellung der modernen Entwicklungslehre,”Jena, 1892.28.Compare Darwin's derivation of fishes from Tunicata because of the notochord which occurs in the tunicate larvæ.29.See Hertwig's“Biological Problem of To-day.”London 1896.30.The justice of this prophecy has been meanwhile illustrated by the recent work of H. Friedmann,“Die Konvergenz der Organismen,”Berlin, 1904.31.If we wish to, we can even read the“biogenetic law”in Dante. See“Purgatory,”p. 26, where the embryo attains successively to the plant, animal and human stages:“Anima fatta la virtute attiva,Qual d'unapianta....Come fungo marino ...Ma comed'animaldivengafante.”This is, of course, nothing else than Aristotle's theory of evolution, done into terzarima, and corrected by St. Thomas.For the latest application of these views, even in relation to the“biogenetic fundamental law,”see the finely finished“Morpho-genetic Studies”of T. Garbowski (Jena, 1903):“The greater part of what is usually referred to the so-called fundamental biogenetic law depends on illusion, since all things undeveloped or imperfect must bear a greater or less resemblance one to another.”32.I.e., The occurrence of saltatory, transilient, or discontinuous variations or mutations.33.I.e., The emergence of a distinctively new pattern of organisation.34.See H. G. Bronn's Appendix to his translation of Darwin's“Origin of Species.”First German edition.35.Finally and comprehensively in the two volumes we have already mentioned,“Vorträge über die Deszendenztheorie,”Jena, 1902 (Eng. trans., London, 1904).“Natural selection depends essentially upon the cumulative augmentation of the most minute useful variations in the direction of their utility; only the useful is developed and increased, and great effects are brought about slowly through the summing up of many very minute steps.... But the philosophical significance of natural selection lies in the fact that it shows us how to explain the origin of useful, well-adapted structures purely by mechanical factors, and without having to fall back upon a directive principle.”36.If it were not white it would be observed by the seals, which would thus avoid being devoured by it. See Weismann, I., p. 70. (English edition, p. 65.)37.It is almost comical when Weismann, the champion of the purely naturalistic outlook, occasionally forgets his rôle altogether, and puts in a word for“chance,”or attempts to soften absolute predetermination. For if even a single wolf should destroy a stag“by chance,”or if a single“id”should“chance”to grow in a manner slightly different from that laid down for it by the compelling force of preceding and accompanying circumstances, the whole Darwinian edifice would be labour lost.38.See Darwin,“... chance variations. Unless such occur, natural selection can do nothing.”39.“Die Darwinsehe Theorie. Gemeinverständliche Vorlesungen über die Naturphilosophie der Gegenwart gehalten vor Studierenden aller Fakultäten,”Leipzig, 1903. This book is the continuation of the author's“Deszendenztheorie.”40.Fleischmann's book compares favourably with those of other naturalists, in that he does not contrast“Moses”and natural science, as is customary, but has a deeper knowledge of the modern view of Genesis I. than is usually found among naturalists, whether of the“positive”or“negative”standpoint.41.See also Wolff.42.See C.C. Coe,“Nature versus Natural Selection,”London, 1895. Perhaps the most comprehensive, many-sided, critical analysis of the theory of natural selection. See also Herbert Spencer,“The Inadequacy of Natural Selection,”1893.43.Leipzig, 1888, 1897, 1901. In part translated as“Organic Evolution.”We are here mainly concerned with Vols. I. and III. Later on we shall have to discuss Vol. II.44.Wien, 1899.45.See Wettstein,“Neolamarckism,”Jena, 1902. See also Demoor, Massart, Vandervelde,“L'Evolution régressive en Biologie et Sociologie,”Paris, 1897. Bibliothèque scientific internationale, vol. lxxxv. This work is on the Lamarckian basis. It is original in applying Lamarckian principles to a theory of society.46.Two vols., Leipzig, 1901 and 1902.47.It remains open to question whether Eimer's explanation is sufficient in all cases, even those of the exaggeratedly deceptive copies of leaves or bark, or the colour of the environment. It is certainly not the sorry explanation in terms of“Variation and Selection,”but that of a spontaneous imitation of the surroundings, that forces itself irresistibly upon us in this connection.48.Jena, 1892 and 1895.49.See Reinke,“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie,”1901, especially pp. 463 onwards on“Phylogenetisches Bildungspotential.”von Wettstein (On direct adaptation),“Neolamarkismus,”Jena, 1902.Cf.“Wissensch-Beiträge zum 15 Jahresberichte (1902) der Philos. Gesellschaft an der Universität zu Wien: Vorträge und Besprechungen über die Krisis der Darwinismus.”M. Kassowitz,“Allgemeine Biologie,”I. and II., 1899. O. Hertwig,“Entwicklung der Biologie im 19. Jahrhundert.”Wiesner,“Elemente der wissenschaftlichen Botanik.”(cf.especially III.“Biologie der Pflanzen”), and on p. 288 the summary of propositions which are very similar to those formulated later by Korschinsky. (“Auf Grund des den Organismen innewohnenden Vervollkommnungstriebes.”)50.See the particularly beautiful and suggestive experiments of Haberlandt:“Experimentelle Hervorrufung eines neuen Organs.”In“Festschrift für Schwendener,”Berlin Borntraeger, 1899.51.See“Nature,”1891, p. 44152.See“Nature,”1891, p. 441.53.The variation-increment of the selection theory ought to be a differential. But in many cases it is not so. As for instance in symmetrical correlated variation, &c. In the struggle for existence it is usually not advantages of organisation which are decisive, but the chance advantages of situation, though these have no“selective”influence. The case of the tapeworm is illustrative.His work,“Die organischen Regulationen, Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie des Lebens,”1901, is a systematic survey of illustrations of the“autonomy”of vital processes. In his“Analytischen Theorie der organischen Entwicklung,”Leipzig, 1894, his special biological (“ontogenetic”) views are still in process of development. But even here his sharp rejection of Darwinism is complete (see VI., Par. 3, on“the absurd assumption of a contingent character of morphogenesis”). It is not for nothing that the book is dedicated to Wigand and C. F. von Baer. He says that in regard to development we must“picture to ourselves external agents acting as stimuli and achieving transformations which have the character, not analysable as to its causes, of being adapted to their end, that is, capable of life.”Incomplete, but very instructive too, are his discussions on the causal and the teleological outlook, the necessity for both, and the impossibility of eliminating the latter from the study of nature. In a series of subsequent works, Driesch has defined and strengthened this position, finally reaching the declaration:“Darwin belongs to history, just like that other curiosity of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both are variations on the theme,‘How to lead a whole generation by the nose!’”(“Biolog. Zentralbl.”1896, p. 16). We are concerned with Driesch more particularly in Chapter IX.54.See Driesch“Kritisches und Polemisches,”Biol. Zentrabl., 1902, p. 187, Note 2.55.“Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift,”xiv., p. 273.56.See § 70 and subsequent sections. Take, for instance, the sentences:—“Every production of material things and of their forms must be interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws,”and the contrast:“Some products of material nature cannot be interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws.”57.To Aristotle the“Soul”(ψυχὴ ϕυτική Psyche, phytike) was in the first place a purely biological principle. But by means of his elastic formula of Potentiality and Actuality he was able to make the transition to the psychological with apparent ease. The biological is to him in“potentiality”what sensation, impulse, imagination are in“realisation.”But the biological and the psychological are not related to one another as stages. Growth, form, development, &c., cannot be carried over through any“actualisatio”into sensation, consciousness and the like.An essentially different question is, whether the biological may not be not indeed derivable from the psychological—that would be the same mistake—but dependent on, and conditioned by it, just as we regard the voluntary moving and directing of the body as dependent on it. An imaginative interpretation of the world will always take this course.58.Of course all this still gives us no ground for drawing conclusions as to the correctness of the mechanistic theory, but only affords a reason for its power of persistence. Indeed, the very fact that, in investigating the problem of life, instinct directs us towards mechanical interpretations, should give added weight to the other fact, that among the ranks of naturalists themselves there constantly arise doubts and criticisms of the adequacy of this mode of interpretation, and that many of them go over more or less completely to the vitalistic point of view.59.H. Helmholtz,“Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft, eine physikalische Abhandlung,”Berlin, 1847.60.Max Verworn,“Die Biogenhypothese,”Jena, 1903.Cf.criticisms by Czapek in the“Botanische Zeitung,”No. 2, 1903, and by Loeb in the“Biologisches Zentralblatt,”1902.61.Berlin, 1900. Edited by R. du Bois-Reymond.62.Bütschli,“Untersuchungen über microscopische Schäume und das Protoplasma,”Leipzig, 1892.Cf.Berthold,“Studien zur Protoplasmamechanik.”63.Rhumbler,“Zur Mechanik des Gastrulationvorganges ...”in“Archiv. f. Entwicklungsmechanik,”Bd. 14.64.“Bewegung der lebendigen Substanz.”Jena, 1892.65.A short, very attractive description of these mechanical methods, and one which appeals particularly to us laymen because of its excellent illustrations, is Dreyer's“Ziele und Wege biologischer Forschung”(Jena, 1892), especially the first part,“Die Flüssigkeitsmechanik als eine Grundlage der organischen Form- und Gerüst-Bildung.”The astonishing and fascinating forms of Radiolarian frameworks and“skeletons”(the artistic appreciation of which was made possible to a wider public by Haeckel's“Kunstformen der Natur”) are here made the subject of mechanical explanations, which are certainly in a high degree plausible.66.Cf.Roux,“Archiv. fur Entwicklungsmechanik.”The name sufficiently indicates the scope.67.For a discussion of the difficulties and impossibilities of this theory see page148above.68.“Preformation oder Epigenesis?”Outlines of a theory of the development of organisms. Jena, 1894. (Part I. of“Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie.”) Translated by P. Chalmers Mitchell,“The Biological Problem of To-day.”69.In his earlier period. Later he rejects both preformation and epigenesis, as mechanical distortions of vital processes.70.See also Lotze's interesting article“Instinct”in the same work.71.Part II. of his“Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie.”72.Second Edition, 1902.73.In Vol. II. p. 139. 1898.74.“General Physiology.”Translated by Lee. London. 1899. P. 170.75.As a remarkable instance and corroboration of this, we may refer to the ever-recurring, instinctive antipathy of deeply religious temperaments, from Augustine to Luther and Schleiermacher, to the Aristotelian mood and its conception of the world, and their sympathy with Plato's (mostly and especially in their“Platonised”expressions). The clear-cut, luminous, conception of the world which expresses everything in terms of commensurable concepts is thoroughly Aristotelian. But it would be difficult to find a place in it for the peculiar element which lies at the root of all true devotional feeling, and which makes faith something more than the highest“reverence, love and trust.”76.“Arch. für pathol. Anatomie und Physiologie,”Bd. VIII. 1855.77.Vol. IX., 1856.78.The same is true even of crystals,“omne crystallum e crystallo.”79.Cf.“Ueber die Aufgabe der Naturwissenschaft,”Jena, 1876.“Naturwissenschaftliche Tatsachen und Probleme.”“Physiologie und Entwicklungslehre,”1886, in the collection of the“Allgemeiner Vereins für Deutsche Literatur.”Also in the same collection,“Aus Natur- und Menschen-leben.”80.These ideas are not fully worked out, and they are disguised in poetic form—for instance, when even the play of flames is compared to vital processes. But if they be stripped of their poetic garb, they lead to the same conclusions to which one is always led when one approaches the problem unprejudiced by naturalistic or anthropomorphic preconceptions of the relation of the infinite to the finite, or the divine to the natural. If we exclude the materialistic or semi-materialistic position which regards teleological phenomena, vital processes, and even states of sensation and consciousness as the function of a“substance”or of matter, we can quite well speak of them as general“cosmo-organic”functions of universal being, meaning that they occur of necessity wherever the proper conditions exist. According to the doctrine of potentiality and actuality, this is to say that all possible stages of the higher and highest phenomena aresemper et ubiquepotentially present in universal being, and that they become actual wherever the physical processes are far enough advanced to afford the necessary conditions.Preyer's ideas have been revived of late, especially in the romantic form, as, for instance, in Willy Pastor's“Lebensgeschichte der Erde”(“Leben und Wissen,”Vol. I., Leipzig, 1903). And in certain circles, characterised by a simultaneous veneration for and combination of modern natural science—Haeckel, Romanticism, Novalis and other antitheses—Fechner appears to have come to life again. The type of this group is W. Bölsche. Naturally enough, Pastor has turned his attention also to the recent views of Schroen in regard to crystallisation. The fact,omne crystallum e crystallo, like the corresponding fact,omne vivum e vivo, was long a barrier against mechanistic derivation. But Schroen draws a parallel between crystallisation and organic processes, so that the alleged clearness and obviousness of the inorganic can no longer be carried over—in the old fashion—into the realm of life, but, conversely, the mystery of life must be extended downwards, and continued into the inorganic.81.Worthy of note and much cited is a somewhat indefinite essay on“Neovitalism,”by the Wurzburg pathologist, E. von Rindfleisch (in“Deutsche Medizinische Wochensehrift,”1895, No. 38).82.Already given in detail in his“Lehrbuch der phys. und pathol. Chemie”(Second Edition, 1889), in the first chapter,“Vitalism and Mechanism.”In the meantime a fifth revised and enlarged edition of Bunge's book has appeared as a“Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen”(Leipzig, 1901), The relevant early essays appear here again under the title“Idealism and Mechanism.”The arguments are the same. It is often supposed that it is merely a question of time, and that in the long run we must succeed in finding proofs that the whole process of life is only a complex process of movement; but the history of physiology shows that the contrary is the case. All the processes which can be explained mechanically are those which are not vital phenomena at all. It is in activity that the riddle of life lies. The solution of this riddle is looked for, more decidedly than before but still somewhat vaguely, in the“idealism”of self-consciousness and its implications,“Physiologus nemo nisi psychologus.”These views have been also stated in a separate lecture: G. Bunge,“Vitalismus und Mechanismus,”(Leipzig, 1886).83.“Allgemeine Biologie”(2 vols.), Vienna, 1899.84.Jena, 1903.85.Cf.especially Verworn's example of the manufacture of sulphuric acid. See what we have previously said on the“second line”of mechanistic theory, along which Neumeister's thought mainly moves. See especially p. 198. As regards the“fifth line,”the problem of the development of form in its present phase, there is an instructive short essay by Fr. Merkel (Nachrichten der K. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften Göttingen. Geschäftl. Mitt. 1897, Heft 2)—“Welche Kräfte wirken gestaltend auf den Körper der Menschen und Tiere?”This essay avoids, obviously intentionally, the shibboleths of controversy. The mechanical point of view and the play with mechanical analogies and models are abruptly dismissed.“If things, which were in themselves susceptible of mechanical explanations, occur in the absence of the mechanical antecedent conditions, then we must seek for other forces to enable us to understand them.”And quite calmly a return is made to the old, simple conception of a“regulative”and a“formative force,”inherent as a capacitysui generiswithin the“energids,”the really living parts of the cell. The cell-energid carries within it the“pattern”of the organisation, and the partial or perfect“capacity”(“Fertigkeit”) for producing and reproducing the whole organism. But these two forces“make use of”the physico-chemical forces as tools to work out details. So to describe the state of the case is not of course a solution of the problem; it is only a figurative formulation of it. But that, at the present day, we can and must return to doing this if we are to describe things simply and as they actually occur, is precisely what is most instructive in the matter.86.“Beiträge zur Kritik der Darwinschen Lehre,”which was first published in the“Biologisches Zentralblatt,”1898.87.Leipzig, 1892.88.Before Wigand's larger works there had appeared F. Delpino:“Applicazione della Teoria Darwinia ai Fiori ed agli Insetti Visitatori dei Fiori”(Bull. della Societa Entomologica Ital., Florence 1870). He says:“Un principio intrinsico, reagente, finchè dura la vita, contro le influenze estrinseche ossia contro gli agenti chimici e fisici.”89.“Elemente der Wissenschaftlichen Botanik. Biologie der Pflanzen.”1889.90.“Lehrbuch der Biologie der Pflanzen.”Stuttgart, 1895.91.Cf.Cohn,“Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen,”vii. 407, See especially the concluding chapter,“Einiges über Functionen der einzelnen Zellorgane.”From Zoology we may cite E. Teichmann's investigation,“Ueber die Beziehung zwischen Astrosphären und Furchen.”“Experimentelle Untersuchungen am Seeigelei”(“Archiv. f. Entw. Mech.”xvi. 2, 1903). This paper contains no references to“psychical phenomena,”“power,”or“will,”and we cannot but approve of this in technical research. But it is pointed out that the mechanistic interpretation of the detailed processes of development has definite limitations, and we are referred to“fundamental characters of living matter which we must take for granted.”This is even more decidedly the case in Tad. Garbowski's beautiful“Morphogenetische Studien, als Beitrag zur Methodologie zoologischer Forschung.”These belong to the line of thought followed by Driesch and Wolff, who are both frequently and approvingly quoted, and they afford an excellent instance of that mood of dissatisfaction with and protest against the“dogmas”of descent, selection and phylogeny, which is observable in many quarters among the younger generation of investigators. Garbowski vigorously combats Haeckel's theories of development, especially“the fundamental biogenetic law, and the Gastræa theory.”He criticises“mechanistic”interpretations of the development of the embryo, which“treat the living being morphologically, as if the matter were one of vesicles, cylinders and plates, and not of vital units”: and he does not look with favour on“artificial amoebæ,”which can move, creep, and do everything except live. The ideal of biology is of course always a science with laws and equations, but the key to these will not be found in mechanics. Garbowski's studies may be highly recommended as giving a sharp and vivid impression of the modern anti-mechanistic tendencies observable even in technical research.92.Trans. by Levinsohn.“Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung,”Munich, 1898, No. 166.93.Bütschli,op. cit., p. 200.94.“The Monist,”1899, p. 179.95.Cf.“Entwicklung der Biologie in 19. Jahrhundert”(“Naturforscher Versammlung,”1900), and“Zeit- und Streit-fragen der Biologie,”1894-7, especially Part II.,“Mechanik und Zoologie.”96.“Die Organismen und ihr Ursprung,”published in“Nord und Süd,”xviii., p. 201seq.—“Die Welt als Tat,”Berlin 1899, since then in second edition.—“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie,”1901.—And“Der Ursprung des Lebens auf der Erde,”in the“Türmer-Jahrbuch,”1903.97.Cf., the discussion by A. Drews in the“Preuss. Jahrbuch,”October, 1902, p. 101, a review of Reinke's“Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie.”98.Of all the bad Greek zoology has produced,“Ontogenesis”is probably the worst. The Becoming of the Being! The word is used in contrast to Phylogenesis, the becoming of the race or of the species, and it denotes the development of the individual.99.Cf.p. 130. Excellent observations on“purpose.”If two or more chains of causes meet, we call it“chance;”if they do so constantly and in a typical manner, we call it“purpose.”100.“Biolog. Centralbl.,”1896, p. 363.101.“Die Lokalisation (= spatial determination) morphogenetischer Vorgänge, ein Beweis vitalistischen Geschehens,”1899 (in“Archiv. f. Entw.-Mechanik,”viii., 1, and separately published), and“Die organischen Regulationen: Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie des Lebens,”Leipzig, 1901. Also“Die‘Seele’als elementarer Natur-factor,”(studies on the movements of organisms), Leipzig, 1903. He gives a general review of his own evolution in the“Süddeutsche Monatshefte,”January 1904, under the title“Die Selbständigkeit der Biologie und ihre Probleme.”102.In the“Biol. Zentralbl.,”June 1903, p. 427, Driesch is criticised by Moszkowski, who rejects Driesch's teleological standpoint. But even this criticism shows us how far the untenability of the mechanistic position has been recognised. It is based upon a somewhat vague dynamism, which admits that the physico-chemical and all other mechanical interpretations have been destructively criticised by Driesch, and recognises entelechy (“ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸ τέλος ἔχον”). An entelechy without τέλος!103.“Vorfragen der Biologie,”1899.“Die‘Ueberwindung des Mechanismus’in der Biologie.”“Biolog. Zentralbl.,”1901, p. 130.104.Cf.Tad. Garbowski,“Morphogenetische Studien,”p. 167. The illustration here employed of the arc and the“explanation of form by form”would be a good criticism of many of Albrecht's statements.105.Schneider has expounded his physiological and morphological view in his“Comparative Histology.”In“Vitalismus”(“Elementare Lebensfunctionen,”Vienna, 1903) he sums up his vitalistic views. It is a comprehensive work which goes deeper than others of its class into the detailed description and analysis of the intimate phenomena of life. Indeed it almost amounts to an independent biology. But the most essential vital problems, the development of form, regeneration, and inheritance, to which Driesch gives the fullest consideration, are all too briefly treated. In Chapters XI. and XII. the question of vitalism expands into a far-reaching discussion of the general outlook upon nature. We need not here concern ourselves with his more general views. Schneider must be regarded as a representative of the most modern tendency of“Psychism,”which, stimulated by Mach, Avenarius, and the school of“immanence-philosophy,”finds expression among the younger physiologists and biologists, from Schneider to Driesch, Verworn, Albrecht, and others. To overthrow“materialism”and“realism,”they utilise, with impetuous delight, the ancient self-evident idea that what is given to us is sensation. They confuse and identify such opposites as Kant and Berkeley, and their own position with that of“solipsism.”This outlook is still vague and vacillating, and it may perhaps compel epistemology to return on its old path from the sophists to Plato, from Hume to Kant. In Schneider's case, however, the thin stream of this new sensualism is intermingled with so many intuitions and perceptions of the deeper nature of knowledge that one is now curious to know how this strange mixture of semi-materialism, idealism, solipsism, and a priorism is to make the transition from its present extremely labile phase to a condition of stable equilibrium. One fears lest sooner or later a reaction against the contortions of this empiricism and psychism should lead to a modern rehabilitation of mysticism or occultism. (Cf.p. 295 ff.)In an essay on“Vitalism”in the“Preuss. Jahrbuch,”Aug. 1903, p. 276, Schneider has supplemented his previous work.106.If the protest of natural science against these means no more than that they should be excluded as inaccessible to scientific understanding, from the domain of its investigation, but not from reality, it is perhaps fully justified in its methods.107.Though somewhat inconsequent, since at any rate the enthusiasm for truth could not result from a naturalistic, but only from some kind of idealistic basis.108.Schleiermacher,“Reden über die Religion,”ii.
This has been urged often enough even by scientific investigators. In such cases they have frequently been reproached for dragging miracles into nature when they call a halt in face of the“underivable”and the“mysterious.”This is a complete misunderstanding. With miracles and with the supernatural in the historical sense of these words, this mode of regarding nature has nothing whatever to do. It would be much more reasonable to maintain the converse: that there exists between supernatural ideas and the belief in the absolute explicability and rationalisation of nature a peculiar mutual relation and attraction. For, if we think out the relation clearly, we must see that all real and consistent belief in miracles demands as its most effective background the clearest possible explicability of nature. It pictures to itself two natures, so to speak: nature and supernature, and the latter of these interpolates itself into the former in the form of sudden and occasional interruptions; that is to say, as miracles. The purpose of miracles is to be recognised as such, as events absolutely different from the ordinary course of happening. And they are most likely thus to be recognised when nature itself is translucent and mathematical. Thus we find that supernaturalism quite readily accepts, and even insists upon a rationalistic explanation of nature. But this is quite incorrect. Nature is not so thoroughly rationalised and calculable as such a point of view would have us believe.
The really religious element in belief in miracles is that it, too, in its own way, is seeking after mystery, dependence and providence. It fails because it naïvely seeks for these in isolated and exceptional acts, which have no analogy to other phenomena. It regards these as arbitrary acts, and does so because it overlooks or underestimates the fact that they have to be reckoned with throughout the whole of nature.
If we wish to, we can even read the“biogenetic law”in Dante. See“Purgatory,”p. 26, where the embryo attains successively to the plant, animal and human stages:
“Anima fatta la virtute attiva,Qual d'unapianta....
Come fungo marino ...
Ma comed'animaldivengafante.”
This is, of course, nothing else than Aristotle's theory of evolution, done into terzarima, and corrected by St. Thomas.
For the latest application of these views, even in relation to the“biogenetic fundamental law,”see the finely finished“Morpho-genetic Studies”of T. Garbowski (Jena, 1903):“The greater part of what is usually referred to the so-called fundamental biogenetic law depends on illusion, since all things undeveloped or imperfect must bear a greater or less resemblance one to another.”
The variation-increment of the selection theory ought to be a differential. But in many cases it is not so. As for instance in symmetrical correlated variation, &c. In the struggle for existence it is usually not advantages of organisation which are decisive, but the chance advantages of situation, though these have no“selective”influence. The case of the tapeworm is illustrative.
His work,“Die organischen Regulationen, Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie des Lebens,”1901, is a systematic survey of illustrations of the“autonomy”of vital processes. In his“Analytischen Theorie der organischen Entwicklung,”Leipzig, 1894, his special biological (“ontogenetic”) views are still in process of development. But even here his sharp rejection of Darwinism is complete (see VI., Par. 3, on“the absurd assumption of a contingent character of morphogenesis”). It is not for nothing that the book is dedicated to Wigand and C. F. von Baer. He says that in regard to development we must“picture to ourselves external agents acting as stimuli and achieving transformations which have the character, not analysable as to its causes, of being adapted to their end, that is, capable of life.”Incomplete, but very instructive too, are his discussions on the causal and the teleological outlook, the necessity for both, and the impossibility of eliminating the latter from the study of nature. In a series of subsequent works, Driesch has defined and strengthened this position, finally reaching the declaration:“Darwin belongs to history, just like that other curiosity of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both are variations on the theme,‘How to lead a whole generation by the nose!’”(“Biolog. Zentralbl.”1896, p. 16). We are concerned with Driesch more particularly in Chapter IX.
To Aristotle the“Soul”(ψυχὴ ϕυτική Psyche, phytike) was in the first place a purely biological principle. But by means of his elastic formula of Potentiality and Actuality he was able to make the transition to the psychological with apparent ease. The biological is to him in“potentiality”what sensation, impulse, imagination are in“realisation.”But the biological and the psychological are not related to one another as stages. Growth, form, development, &c., cannot be carried over through any“actualisatio”into sensation, consciousness and the like.
An essentially different question is, whether the biological may not be not indeed derivable from the psychological—that would be the same mistake—but dependent on, and conditioned by it, just as we regard the voluntary moving and directing of the body as dependent on it. An imaginative interpretation of the world will always take this course.
These ideas are not fully worked out, and they are disguised in poetic form—for instance, when even the play of flames is compared to vital processes. But if they be stripped of their poetic garb, they lead to the same conclusions to which one is always led when one approaches the problem unprejudiced by naturalistic or anthropomorphic preconceptions of the relation of the infinite to the finite, or the divine to the natural. If we exclude the materialistic or semi-materialistic position which regards teleological phenomena, vital processes, and even states of sensation and consciousness as the function of a“substance”or of matter, we can quite well speak of them as general“cosmo-organic”functions of universal being, meaning that they occur of necessity wherever the proper conditions exist. According to the doctrine of potentiality and actuality, this is to say that all possible stages of the higher and highest phenomena aresemper et ubiquepotentially present in universal being, and that they become actual wherever the physical processes are far enough advanced to afford the necessary conditions.
Preyer's ideas have been revived of late, especially in the romantic form, as, for instance, in Willy Pastor's“Lebensgeschichte der Erde”(“Leben und Wissen,”Vol. I., Leipzig, 1903). And in certain circles, characterised by a simultaneous veneration for and combination of modern natural science—Haeckel, Romanticism, Novalis and other antitheses—Fechner appears to have come to life again. The type of this group is W. Bölsche. Naturally enough, Pastor has turned his attention also to the recent views of Schroen in regard to crystallisation. The fact,omne crystallum e crystallo, like the corresponding fact,omne vivum e vivo, was long a barrier against mechanistic derivation. But Schroen draws a parallel between crystallisation and organic processes, so that the alleged clearness and obviousness of the inorganic can no longer be carried over—in the old fashion—into the realm of life, but, conversely, the mystery of life must be extended downwards, and continued into the inorganic.
Cf.Cohn,“Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen,”vii. 407, See especially the concluding chapter,“Einiges über Functionen der einzelnen Zellorgane.”From Zoology we may cite E. Teichmann's investigation,“Ueber die Beziehung zwischen Astrosphären und Furchen.”“Experimentelle Untersuchungen am Seeigelei”(“Archiv. f. Entw. Mech.”xvi. 2, 1903). This paper contains no references to“psychical phenomena,”“power,”or“will,”and we cannot but approve of this in technical research. But it is pointed out that the mechanistic interpretation of the detailed processes of development has definite limitations, and we are referred to“fundamental characters of living matter which we must take for granted.”
This is even more decidedly the case in Tad. Garbowski's beautiful“Morphogenetische Studien, als Beitrag zur Methodologie zoologischer Forschung.”These belong to the line of thought followed by Driesch and Wolff, who are both frequently and approvingly quoted, and they afford an excellent instance of that mood of dissatisfaction with and protest against the“dogmas”of descent, selection and phylogeny, which is observable in many quarters among the younger generation of investigators. Garbowski vigorously combats Haeckel's theories of development, especially“the fundamental biogenetic law, and the Gastræa theory.”He criticises“mechanistic”interpretations of the development of the embryo, which“treat the living being morphologically, as if the matter were one of vesicles, cylinders and plates, and not of vital units”: and he does not look with favour on“artificial amoebæ,”which can move, creep, and do everything except live. The ideal of biology is of course always a science with laws and equations, but the key to these will not be found in mechanics. Garbowski's studies may be highly recommended as giving a sharp and vivid impression of the modern anti-mechanistic tendencies observable even in technical research.
Schneider has expounded his physiological and morphological view in his“Comparative Histology.”In“Vitalismus”(“Elementare Lebensfunctionen,”Vienna, 1903) he sums up his vitalistic views. It is a comprehensive work which goes deeper than others of its class into the detailed description and analysis of the intimate phenomena of life. Indeed it almost amounts to an independent biology. But the most essential vital problems, the development of form, regeneration, and inheritance, to which Driesch gives the fullest consideration, are all too briefly treated. In Chapters XI. and XII. the question of vitalism expands into a far-reaching discussion of the general outlook upon nature. We need not here concern ourselves with his more general views. Schneider must be regarded as a representative of the most modern tendency of“Psychism,”which, stimulated by Mach, Avenarius, and the school of“immanence-philosophy,”finds expression among the younger physiologists and biologists, from Schneider to Driesch, Verworn, Albrecht, and others. To overthrow“materialism”and“realism,”they utilise, with impetuous delight, the ancient self-evident idea that what is given to us is sensation. They confuse and identify such opposites as Kant and Berkeley, and their own position with that of“solipsism.”This outlook is still vague and vacillating, and it may perhaps compel epistemology to return on its old path from the sophists to Plato, from Hume to Kant. In Schneider's case, however, the thin stream of this new sensualism is intermingled with so many intuitions and perceptions of the deeper nature of knowledge that one is now curious to know how this strange mixture of semi-materialism, idealism, solipsism, and a priorism is to make the transition from its present extremely labile phase to a condition of stable equilibrium. One fears lest sooner or later a reaction against the contortions of this empiricism and psychism should lead to a modern rehabilitation of mysticism or occultism. (Cf.p. 295 ff.)
In an essay on“Vitalism”in the“Preuss. Jahrbuch,”Aug. 1903, p. 276, Schneider has supplemented his previous work.