The Views of Botanists Illustrated.It might have been expected that in the domain of plant-biology, if anywhere, the mechanistic standpoint would have been the prevailing one. For it is almost a matter of course to regard plants as devoid of sensation or“psychical”life, and as mechanical systems, chemical laboratories, and reflex mechanisms, and this way of regarding them has been made easy by the very marked uniformity and lack of spontaneity in their vital processes as compared with those of animals. But it is not the case that mechanical theories have here prevailed. The opposition to them is just as great here as elsewhere, and from the days of Wigand onwards it has been almost continuously sustained.88Very characteristic is[pg 249]Pfeffer's“Pflanzen-Physiologie”(1897), which is written professedly from the mechanist point of view.“Vitalism,”according to this authority, is to be rejected, but instead of“vital force”he offers us“given properties,”and the alleged machine-like collocations of the most minute elements. In regard, for instance, to the riddle of development and morphogenesis, we must simply accept it as a“given property,”that the acorn grows in an oak and nothing else. The chemical explanation of the vital functions of protoplasm is also to be rejected; as a shattered watch is no longer a watch though it remains chemically the same, so it is with protoplasm. The available chemical knowledge of the substances of which protoplasm is made up is insufficient to render the vital processes intelligible. Here, as everywhere else, we have to reckon with ultimate“properties (entities), which we neither can, nor desire to analyse further.”“The human mind is no more capable of forming a conception of the ultimate cause of things than of eternity.”If all the views here indicated were followed out to their logical conclusions, they would hinder rather than further the process of reduction to terms of physico-chemical sequences.Kerner von Marilaun in his“Pflanzenleben”deliberately takes up a thorough-going vitalist position, and on this point as well as on many others he opposed the current theory of the school (Darwinism). It is true, he admits, that many of the phenomena in plants[pg 250]can be explained in purely mechanical terms, but they are only those which may occur also in non-living structures. The specific expressions of life cannot be explained in this way. He shows this more fully in regard to the most fundamental of all the vital processes in the plant-body—the breaking up of carbonic acid gas by the chlorophyll to obtain the carbon which is the fundamental element in all living organisms. We know the requisite conditions: the supply of raw material, and the sunlight from which the energy is derived. But how the chlorophyll makes use of these to effect the breaking up, and how it starts the subsequent syntheses of the carbon into the most complex organic compounds remains a mystery. And so on upwards through all the strictly vital phenomena.Wiesner's89view of things is essentially similar. He gives a very impressive picture of the mystery of the chemistry of the plant, showing how small is the number of food-stuffs and raw materials in comparison to the thousands of highly complex chemical substances which the plant produces, and how much work there is involved in de-oxydising the food and in forming syntheses. He, too, refuses, as usual, to postulate“vital force.”Yet to speak of“the fundamental peculiarities of the living matter inherent in the organism”and to admit that plants are“irritable,”“heliotropic,”“geotropic,”&c., amounts to much the same thing as postulating vital[pg 251]force; that is to say, to a mere naming of the specific problem of life without explaining it. The author himself admits this when he says in another place:“If I compare organisms with inorganic systems, I find that the progress of our knowledge is continually enlarging the gulf which separates the one from the other!”These anti-mechanical tendencies show themselves most emphatically in the work of Fr. Ludwig.90In his concluding chapter, after a discussion of the theories of Darwin, Nägeli, and Weismann, he postulates, for variation, heredity, and species-formation in particular,“forces other than physico-chemical,”“let us call them frankly psychical.”It is instructive to see how these“vitalistic”views crop up even in studies of detail and of the microscopically small, as for instance in E. Crato's“Beiträge zur Anatomie und Physiologie des Elementar-organismus.”How the living organism contains within itself what is in its turn living, down into ever smaller detail, (amœboid movements of certain plastines, physodes,) how incomparable the living organism is with a“machine,”to which its libellers are so fond of likening it, how it builds itself up, steers, and stokes itself, how it produces with“playful ease”the most marvellous and graceful forms, makes combinations and breaks them up, how analogous its whole activity is to“being able”and“willing,”all this is clearly brought out.91[pg 252]A very fresh and lucid presentation of the whole case is given by Borodin, Professor of Botany in St. Petersburg, in his essay,“Protoplasm and Vital Force.”92He sharply castigates the one-sidedness and impetuosity of the mechanical theory, as in Haeckel's discovery of Bathybius and of non-nucleated bacteria. The latter[pg 253]are problematical, and the former has been proved an illusion. To penetrate farther into the processes of life is simply to become aware of an ever-deepening series of riddles. There is no such thing as“protoplasm,”or“living proteid,”or indeed any unified, simple“living matter”whatever. Artificial“oil-emulsion amoebæ”93bear the same relation to living ones that Vaucanson's mechanical duck bears to a real one; that is, none at all. Our“protoplasm”is as mystical as the old“vital force,”and both are only camping-grounds for our ignorance. Neither the mechanical nor the atomic theory were the results of exact investigations; they were borrowed from philosophy. We do indeed investigate the typically vital process of irritability by physical methods. But the response made by the organism to physical coercion may be called a mockery of physics. The mechanists help themselves out with crude analogies from the mechanical, conceal the problem with the name“irritability,”and thus get rid of the greatest marvels. If vital force itself were to call out from its cells,“Here I am,”they would probably see in it only a remarkable case of“irritability.”Mechanism is no more positive knowledge than vitalism is; it is only the dogmatic faith of the majority of present-day naturalists.Constructive Criticism.Those whose protests we have hitherto been considering have not added to their criticism of the[pg 254]mechanical theory any positive contribution of their own, or at least they give nothing more than very slight hints pointing towards a psychical theory. But there are others who have sought to overcome the mechanical theory by gaining a deeper grasp of the nature of“force”in general. Their attempts have been of various kinds, but usually tend in one direction, which can perhaps be most precisely and briefly indicated through Lloyd Morgan's views, as summed up, for instance, in his essay on“Vitalism.”94In the beginning of biological text-books, we usually find (he says) a chapter on the nature of“force,”but it is“like grace before meat”—without influence on quality or digestion. Yet this problem must be cleared up before we can arrive at any understanding of the whole subject. In all attempts at“reducing to simpler terms,”it must be borne in mind that“force”reveals its nature in ever higher stages, of which every one is new. Even cohesion cannot be reduced to terms of gravitation, nor the chemical affinities and molecular forces to something more primitive. They are already something“outside the recognised order of nature.”In a still higher form force is expressed in the processes of crystallisation. At the formation of the first crystal there came into action a directing force of the same kind as the will of the sculptor at the making of the Venus of Melos. This new element, which intervenes every time, Lloyd Morgan regards, with Herbert[pg 255]Spencer (“Principles of Biology”), as“due to that ultimate reality which underlies this manifestation, as it underlies all other manifestations.”There can be no“understanding”in the sense of“getting behind things”: even the actions of“brute matter”cannot be“understood.”The play of chance not only does not explain the living; it does not even explain the not-living. But life in particular can neither be brought into the cell from without, nor be explained as simply“emerging from the co-operation of the components of the protoplasm,”and it is“in its essence not to be conceived in physico-chemical terms,”but represents“new modes of activity in the noumenal cause,”which, just because it is noumenal, is beyond our grasp. For only phenomena are“accessible to thought.”Among the biologists who concern themselves with deeper considerations, Oscar Hertwig,95the Director of the Anatomical Institute at Berlin, has expressed ideas similar to those we have been discussing, little as this may seem to be the case at first sight. He desires to oust the ordinary mechanism, so to speak, by replacing it by a mechanism of a higher order, and in making the attempt he examines and deepens the traditional ideas of causality and“force,”and defines the right and wrong of the quantitative-mathematical interpretation of nature in general, and of mechanics in particular. He[pg 256]follows confessedly in Lotze's path, not so much in regard to that thinker's insistence upon the association of the causal and the teleological modes of interpretation, as in modifying the idea of causality. O. Hertwig puts forward his own theories with special reference to those of W. Roux, the founder of the new“Science of the Future”—the mechanical, and therefore only scientific theory of development, which no longer only describes, but understands and causally explains phenomena (“Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik”). There are two kinds of mechanism (Hertwig says): that in the higher philosophical sense, and that in the purely physical sense. The former declares that all phenomena are connected by a guiding thread of causal connection and can be causally explained. As such, its application to the domain of vital phenomena is justifiable and self-evident. But it is not justifiable if cause be simply made identical with and limited to“force,”if the causal connection be only admitted in the technical sense of the transference and transformation of energy, and if, over and above, it is supposed to give an“explanation,”in the sense of an insight into things themselves. Even mechanics is (as Kirchoff maintained) a“descriptive”science. Hertwig agrees with Schopenhauer and Lotze in regarding every primitive natural“force”as unique, not reducible to simpler terms, but qualitatively distinct,—a“qualitas occulta,”capable not of physical but only of metaphysical explanation. And thus his conclusions imply rejection of mechanism in the cruder[pg 257]sense. As such, it has only a very limited sphere of action in the realm of the living. The history of mechanical interpretations is a history of their collapse. The attempt to derive the organic from the inorganic has often been made. But no such attempts have held the field for long. We can now say with some reason that“the gulf between the two kingdoms of nature has become deeper just in proportion as our physical and chemical, our morphological and physiological knowledge of the organism has deepened.”Mach's expression“mechanical mythology,”is quoted, and then a fine passage on the insufficiency of the mathematical view of things in general concludes thus:“Mathematics is only a method of thought, an excellent tool of the human mind, but it is very far from being the case that all thought and knowledge moves in this one direction, and that the content of our minds can ever find exhaustive expression through it alone.”In his“Theory of Dominants,”96Reinke, the botanist of Kiel, has attempted to formulate his opposition to the physico-chemical conception of life into a vitalistic theory of his own. Among biologists who confess themselves supporters of the mechanical theory, there are some who expressly reject explanations in terms of[pg 258]chemical and physical principles, and emphasise, more energetically than others, that these can only give rise to vital phenomena and complex processes of movement, on the basis of a most delicately differentiated structure and architecture of the living substance in its minute details, and from the egg onwards. They have created the strict“machine theory,”and they may be grouped together as the“tectonists.”“A watch that has been stamped to pieces is no longer a watch.”Thus the merely material and chemical is not the essential part of the living; it is the tectonic, the machinery of structure that is essential. The fundamental idea in this position is precisely that of Lotze. It is not a“mystical,”vital principle, that sets up, controls, and regulates the physical and chemical processes within the developed or developing organism. They receive their direction and impulse through the fact that they are associated with a given peculiar mechanical structure. This theory certainly contains all the monstrosities of preformation in the germ, the mythologies of the infinitely small, and it suffers shipwreck in ways as diverse as the number of its sides and parts. But it has the merit of clearly disclosing the impossibilities of purely chemical explanations. Reinke's“Theory of Dominants”started from such tectonic conceptions, and so originally did Driesch's Neovitalism, of which we shall presently have to speak.Reinke's theory has gone through several stages of[pg 259]development. At first its general tenor was as follows: Every living thing is typically different from everything that is not living. What explains this difference? Certainly not the hypothesis of vital force, which is far from being clear. The idea that forces of a psychic nature are inherent in the organism is also rejected. The illustration of a watch helps us to understand. The impelling force in it is certainly not merely the ordinary force of gravity or the general elasticity of steel. The efficacy of simple forces such as these can be increased in infinite diversity by the“construction of the apparatus”in which they operate. Life is the function of a quite unique, marvellously complex, inimitable combination of machines. If these be given, the most complex processes fulfil themselves of necessity and without the intervention of special vital forces. But how can they be“given”? The sole analogy to be found is the making of real machines, artificial products as distinguished from fortuitous products. They cannot be made without the influence and activity of intelligence. To explain the incomparably more ingenious and complex vital machine as due to a fortuitous origin and collocation of its individual parts would be more absurd than it would be to think of a watch being made in this way. The dominance of a creative idea cannot but be recognised. An intelligent natural force which is conscious of its aims and calculates its means must be presupposed, if we are really to[pg 260]satisfy our sense of causality. It is a matter of personal conviction whether we find this force in“God”or in the“Absolute.”These views are more fully developed in the theory of dominants expounded in Reinke's later work,“Die Welt as Tat”(after what has been said the meaning of the title will be self-evident), and in his“Theoretische Biologie.”97Very vigorous and convincing are the author's objections to the naturalistic theories of organic life, especially to the“self-origin”of the living, or spontaneous generation. In all vital processes we must reckon with a“physiologicalx,”which cannot be eliminated, which gives to life its unique and underivable character. There are“secondary forces,”“superforces,”“dominants,”which bring about what is peculiar in vital functions and direct their processes.“Vitalism”in the strict sense is thus here also rejected. The machine-theory is held valid. There are“dominants”even in our tools and utensils, in our hammer and spoon, and the“operation”of these cannot be explained merely physico-chemically, but through the dominants of the form, structure and composition, with which they have been invested by intelligence. The association with the views of the tectonists is so far quite apparent. But the idea of“dominants”soon broadens out. We find dominants of form-development,[pg 261]of evolution, and so on. What were at first only peculiarities of structure and architecture have grown almost unawares into dynamic principles of form which have nothing more to do with the mechanical theory, and which, because of their dualistic nature, result in conclusions and modes of explanation which can hardly be called very useful. The lines along which the idea has developed are intelligible enough. It started originally from that of the organism as a finished product, functioning actively, especially in its metabolism. Here the comparison with a steam engine with self-regulators and automatic whistles is admissible, and one may speak of dominants in the sense of mechanical dominants. But the idea thus started was pressed into general service. And thus arose dominants of development, of morphogenesis, even of phylogenetic evolution (“phylogenetic evolution-potential”). New dominants are added, and the theory advances farther and farther from the“machine theory,”becomes ever more enigmatical, and more vitalistic.The Constructive Work of Driesch.What in Reinke's case came about almost unperceived, Driesch did with full consciousness and intention, following the necessity laid upon him by his own gradual personal development and by his consistent, tenacious prosecution of the problem. The acuteness of his thinking, the concentration of his endeavours[pg 262]through long years, his comprehensive knowledge and mastery of the material, the deep logicalness and consistent evolution of his“standpoints,”and his philosophical and theoretical grasp of the subject make him probably the most instructive type, indeed, we may almost say, the very incarnation of the whole disputed question. In 1891 he published his“Mathematisch—mechanische Betrachtung morphologischer Probleme der Biologie,”the work in which he first touched the depths of the problem. It is directed chiefly against the merely“historical”methods in biology, used by the current schools in the form of Darwinism. Darwinism and the Theory of Descent have been so far nothing more than“galleries of ancestors,”and the science ranged under their banner is only descriptive, not explanatory. Instead of setting up contingent theories we must form a“conception”of the internal necessity, inherent in the substratum itself, in accordance with which the forms of life have found expression—a necessity corresponding to that which conditions the form-development of the crystal.Experimental investigations and discoveries, and further reflection, resulted, in 1892, in his“Entwicklungsmechanische Studien,”and led him to insist on the need for what the title of his next year's work calls“Biologie als selbständige Grundwissenschaft.”In this work two important points are emphasised. The first is, that biology must certainly strive after precision,[pg 263]but that this precision consists not in subordination to, but in co-ordination with physics. Biology must rank side by side with physics as an“independent fundamental science,”and that in the form of tectonic. And the second point is, that the teleological point of view must take its place beside the causal. Only by recognising both can biology become a complete science.In the“Analytische Theorie der organischen Entwicklung”(1894) Driesch picks up the thread where he dropped it in the book before, and spins it farther,“traversing”his previous theoretical and experimental results. In this work the author still strives to remain within the frame of the tectonic and machine-theory, but the edges are already showing signs of giving way. Life, he says, is a mechanism based upon a given structure (it is however a machine which is constantly modifying and developing itself). Ontogenesis98is a strictly causal nexus, but following“a natural law the workings of which are entirely enigmatical”(with Wigand). Causality fulfils itself through“liberations,”that is to say, cause and effect are not quantitatively equivalent; and all effect is, notwithstanding its causal conditioning, something absolutely new and not to be calculated from the cause, so that there can be no question[pg 264]of mechanism in the strict sense. And the whole is directed by purpose.99The vital processes compel us to admit that it seems“as if intelligence determined quality and order.”Driesch still tries to reconcile causes and purposes as different“modes of regarding things,”but this device he afterwards abandons. We cannot penetrate to the nature of things either by the causal or by the teleological method. But they are—as Kant maintained—two modes of looking at things, both of which are postulates of our capacity for knowing. Each must stand by itself, and neither can have its sequence disturbed by the interpolation of pieces from the other. In the domain of the causal there can be no teleological explanation, and conversely; one might as well seek for an optical explanation of the synthesis of water; but both are true in their own place. The Madonna della Sedia, looked at microscopically, is a mass of blots, looked at macroscopically it is a picture. And it“is”both of these.Driesch's conclusions continue to advance, led steadily onwards by his experimental studies. In the“Maschinentheorie des Lebens,”100he attacks his own earlier theories with praiseworthy determination, and remorselessly pursues them to the monstrous conclusions to which they lead, and shows that they necessarily perish[pg 265]because of these. He had previously declared, at first emphatically, later with hesitation (we have already seen why), that every single vital process is of a physico-chemical kind, on the basis of a given“structure”of living beings. But now he considers the living organism as itself a result of vital processes—that is, of development. If this also is to be explained mechanically (as physico-chemical processes based on material structure), then the ovum must possessin parvothis infinitely fine structure, by virtue of which it fulfils its own physiological processes of maintenance, and also becomes the efficient cause of the subsequent development. It must bear the type of the individual and of the species, as a rudiment (or primordium) within its own structure. Every specific type must, however, according to the theory of descent, be derived through an endless process of evolution, by gradual stages, from some primitive organism. Just as in the mechanical becoming of the individual organism, so the primitive protovum must also be extraordinarily intricate and complex in its organisation if it is to give rise to all the processes of evolution and development involved in the succeeding ontogenies, phylogenies, regenerations, and so forth. This is a necessary conclusion if the machine-theory be correct, and if we refuse to admit that vital phenomena are governed by specific laws. This consequence is monstrous, and the theory of the tectonists therefore false. But if it be false, what then?[pg 266]Driesch answers this question in the books published in subsequent years.101In these he attains his final standpoint, and makes it more and more secure. The“machine-theory,”and all others like it, are now definitely abandoned. They represent the uncritical dogmatism of a materialistic mode of thought, which binds all phenomena to substance, and refuses to admit any immaterial or dynamic phenomena. The alleged initial structure is nowhere to be found. The pursuit of things into the most minute details leads to no indication of it. The chromatin, in which the most important vital processes have their basis, is very far from having this machine-like structure; it is homogeneous. The formation of the skeleton, for instance, of a Plubeus larva is due to migratory spontaneously moving cells (comparable to the leucocytes of our own body, whose migrations and activities remind one much more of a social organism than of a machine). The organism arises, not from mechanical, but from“harmoniously-equipotential systems”: that is to say, from systems every element of which has equal functional efficiency; so that each individual part bears within itself in an equal degree the potentiality of the whole—an impossibility from the mechanical point of view.[pg 267]Driesch had given an experimental basis for this theory at an earlier stage, in his experiments on the initial stages of the development of sea-urchins, starfishes, zoophytes, and the like. A Planarian worm cut into pieces developed a new worm of smaller size from each part. A mutilated Pluteus larva developed a new food-canal, and restored the whole typical form. His experiment of 1892 went farther still, for he succeeded in separating the first four segmentation-cells of the sea-urchin's egg; and from each cell obtained a developing embryo. These facts, he maintains, compel us to assume a mode of occurrence which is dynamicallysui generis, a“prospective tendency”which is a sub-concept in the Aristotelian“Dynamis.”And the essential difference between this kind of operation and a mechanical operation is, that the same typical effect is always reached, even if the whole normal causal nexus be disturbed. Even when forced into circuitous paths the embryo advances towards the same goal. Thus“vitalism,”that is, the independence and autonomy of the vital processes, is proved. The effect required is attained through“action at a distance,”a mode of happening which is specifically different from anything to be found in the inorganic world, and which has itsdirective, for instance, in the regeneration of lost parts,[pg 268]notin anything corporeal or substantial, but in the end to be attained.In his work on“Organic Regulations,”Driesch collects from the most diverse biological fields more and more astonishing proofs of the activity of the living as contrasted with physico-chemical phenomena, and of the marvellous power the organism has to“help itself”and to attain the typical form and reach the end aimed at, even under the greatest diversity in the chain of conditions. The material here brought forward is enormous, and the author's grasp of it very remarkable; and not the least of the merits of the book is, that the bewildering wealth and diversity of these phenomena, which are usually presented to us as isolated and uncoordinated instances, is here definitely systematised according to their characteristic peculiarities, and from the point of view of the increasing distinctness of the“autonomy”of the processes. The system begins with the active regulatory functions of living matter in the chemistry of metabolism (see particularly the phenomena of immunisation), and ascends through different stages up to the regulations of regeneration. There could be no more impressive way of showing how little life and its“regulations”can be compared to the“self-regulations”of machines, or to the restoring of typical states of equilibrium and of form in the physical and chemical domain, to which the mechanists are fond of referring.The facts thus empirically brought together are then[pg 269]linked together in a theory, and considered epistemologically. We may leave out of account all that is included in the treatment of modern idealism, immanence-philosophy, and solipsism. All this does not arise directly out of the vitalistic ideas, though the latter are fitted into an idealistic framework. Extremely vivid is the excursus on respiration and assimilation. (All processes of building up and breaking down take place within the organism under conditions notoriously different from those obtaining in the laboratory. It is radically impossible to speak of a living“substance”according to the formula CxHyOz, which assimilates and disassimilates itself [sibi].) Excellent, too, are Driesch's remarks on materialistic elucidations of inheritance and morphogenesis. It is quite impossible to succeed with epigenetic speculations on a material basis (cf.Haacke). Weismann is so far right, he admits, from his materialistic premisses when he starts with preformations. But his theory, and all others of the kind, can do nothing more than make an infinitely small photograph of the difficulty. They“explain”the processes of form-development and the regeneration of animals and plants, by constructing infinitely small animals and plants, which develop their form and regenerate lost parts. And Driesch holds it to be impossible to distribute a complicated tectonic among the elements of an equipotential system. In denying the materialistic theory of development, Driesch again determinedly“traverses”[pg 270]his own earlier views. He does this, too, when he now rejects the reconciliation between causality and teleology as different modes of looking at things. The teleological now seems to him itself a factor playing a part in the chain of causes, and thus making it teleological. The key-word of all is to him the“entelechy”of Aristotle.In his last work on“The Soul,”Driesch follows the impossibilities of the mechanical theories from the domain of vital processes into that of behaviour and voluntary actions.The Views of Albrecht and Schneider.An outlook and interpretation which Driesch102maintained for a while, but afterwards abandoned, has been developed in an original and peculiar fashion by Eugen Albrecht, Prosector and Pathologist in Munich.103It is the theory of different ways of looking at things. Albrecht indeed firmly adheres to the chemical and physical interpretation of vital processes, regards[pg 271]approximate completeness along these lines as the ideal of science, and maintains their essential sufficiency. But he holds that the mechanists have been mistaken and one-sided in that they have upheld this interpretation and mode of considering things as the sole and the“true”one. According to our subjective attitude to things and their changes, they appear to us in quite different series of associations, each of which forms a complete series in itself, running parallel to the others, but not intruding to fill up gaps in them. Microscopic and macroscopic study of things illustrate such separate and complete series. The classical example for the whole theory is the psycho-physical parallelism. Psychical phenomena are not“explained”when the correlated line of material changes and the phenomena of the nervous system have been traced out. Similarly with the series of“vital”phenomena,“vital”interpretation from the point of view of the“living organism,”runs parallel to, but distinct from the chemical and physical analyses of vital processes. But each of these parallel ways of regarding things is“true.”For the current separation of the“appearance”and“nature”of things is false, since it assumes that only one of the possible ways of regarding things,e.g., the mechanical-causal mode of interpretation is essential, and that all the others deal only with associated appearance.The idea that only one or two of these series can represent the“true nature”of the phenomenon“can[pg 272]only be called cheap dogma.”Each series is complete in itself, and every successive phase follows directly and without a break from the antecedent one, which alone explains it. In this lies the relative justification of the ever-recurring reactions to“vitalism.”This theory of Albrecht's has all the charms and difficulties, or impossibilities, of parallelistic interpretations in general. Its validity might be discussed with reference to the particular case of psycho-physical parallelism.104To make a sound basis for itself it would require first to clear up the causality problem, and to answer, or at least definitely formulate the great question whether causing (Bewirkung) is to be replaced by mere necessary sequence—for this is where it ends. The conclusion which, with regard to biological methods and ideals, seems to make all concessions to the purely mechanical mode of interpretation, is not sufficiently obvious from the premisses. If the vital series be a“real”one, we should expect that a“vitalistic”mode of interpretation, with methods and aims of its own, would be required, just as a special science of psychology is required. The assumption that each series is complete without a break, and that an all-including analysis of vital processes in terms of mechanical processes must[pg 273]ultimately be possible, is apetitio principii, and breaks down before the objections raised by the vitalists. The most central problem in the whole matter, namely, the relation of the causal to the teleological, has not been touched. These two concepts would, of course, not yield“parallels,”but would be different points of view, which could eventually be applied to each series.K. Camillo Schneider,105Privatdozent in Vienna, uses the soul, the psychical in the true sense, as the explanation[pg 274]of the vital. What had been thought secretly and individually by some of the vitalists already mentioned, but had, so to speak, cropped up only as the incidentally revealed reverse side of their negations of mechanism, Schneider attempts definitely to formulate into a theory. The chief merit of his book on“Vitalism”is to be found, in Chapters II. to X., in his thorough discussion of the chemical, physical, and mechanical theories along the special lines of each.The list of critics might be added to, and the number of standpoints in opposition to mechanism greatly increased. This diversity of standpoint, and the individual way in which each independent thinker reacts from the mechanical theory shows that here, as also in regard to Darwin's theory of selection, we have to do with a dogmatic theory and a forced simplification of phenomena, not with an objective and calm consideration of things as they are. It is a theory wheresimplexhas becomesigillum falsi.How all this affects the Religious Outlook.These denials and destructive criticisms of the mechanical theory, which are now continually cropping up,[pg 275]lead, as must be obvious, towards a deeper conception and interpretation of reality in general, and towards a religious conception in particular. Unquestionably the most important fact in connection with them is the fresh revelation of the depth of things and of appearance, the increased recognition that our knowledge is only leading us towards mystery.It is indeed questionable whether anything more than this can be said in regard to the problem of life, whether we ought not to content ourselves with recognising the limits of our knowledge, and reject all positive statements that go beyond these limits. For the mechanists are undoubtedly right in this, that“entelechy,”“the idea of the whole,”“co-operation,”“guidance,”“psychical factors,”and the like, are only names for riddles, and do not in themselves constitute knowledge.106The case here is somewhat similar to what we have already seen in connection with“antinomies.”They, too, give us no positive insight into the true nature of things, but they at any rate prove to us that we have not yet understood what that is. And, just as they show us that our knowledge of the world as it appears to us can never be complete, so here it appears that we come upon inexplicabilities even within the domain accessible to our knowledge.[pg 276]Thus the religious conception of the world gains something here as from the antinomies, namely, a fresh proof that the world which appears to us and can be comprehended by us, proclaims its true nature and depths, but does not reveal them. Perhaps there is still another gain. For in any case the vital processes and the marvels of evolution and development are examples of the way in which physical processes are constantly subject to a peculiar guidance, which certainly cannot be explained from themselves or in terms of mechanism, organisation, and the like. All attempts to demonstrate this in detail, all“explanations”in terms of dynamic co-operation, of dominants, of ideas, or anything else, are vague, and seem to go to pieces when we try to take firm hold of them. But the fact remains none the less.May not this be a paradigm of the processes and development of the world at large, and even of evolution in the domain of history? Here, too, all ideas of guidance, of endeavour after an aim, &c., which philosophical study of history or religious intuition seems to find, make shipwreck against the fact that every attempt to demonstrate their nature, fails. All these theories of influx, concursus, and so on, whether transcendental or immanent factors be employed, immediately become wooden, and never admit of verification in detail. But precisely the same is true of the dominance of the“idea,”or of the“law[pg 277]of evolution,”or of the“potential of development”in every developing organism. Yet incomprehensible and undemonstrable in detail as this“dominance”is, and completely as it may be concealed behind the play of physical causes, it is there, none the less.
The Views of Botanists Illustrated.It might have been expected that in the domain of plant-biology, if anywhere, the mechanistic standpoint would have been the prevailing one. For it is almost a matter of course to regard plants as devoid of sensation or“psychical”life, and as mechanical systems, chemical laboratories, and reflex mechanisms, and this way of regarding them has been made easy by the very marked uniformity and lack of spontaneity in their vital processes as compared with those of animals. But it is not the case that mechanical theories have here prevailed. The opposition to them is just as great here as elsewhere, and from the days of Wigand onwards it has been almost continuously sustained.88Very characteristic is[pg 249]Pfeffer's“Pflanzen-Physiologie”(1897), which is written professedly from the mechanist point of view.“Vitalism,”according to this authority, is to be rejected, but instead of“vital force”he offers us“given properties,”and the alleged machine-like collocations of the most minute elements. In regard, for instance, to the riddle of development and morphogenesis, we must simply accept it as a“given property,”that the acorn grows in an oak and nothing else. The chemical explanation of the vital functions of protoplasm is also to be rejected; as a shattered watch is no longer a watch though it remains chemically the same, so it is with protoplasm. The available chemical knowledge of the substances of which protoplasm is made up is insufficient to render the vital processes intelligible. Here, as everywhere else, we have to reckon with ultimate“properties (entities), which we neither can, nor desire to analyse further.”“The human mind is no more capable of forming a conception of the ultimate cause of things than of eternity.”If all the views here indicated were followed out to their logical conclusions, they would hinder rather than further the process of reduction to terms of physico-chemical sequences.Kerner von Marilaun in his“Pflanzenleben”deliberately takes up a thorough-going vitalist position, and on this point as well as on many others he opposed the current theory of the school (Darwinism). It is true, he admits, that many of the phenomena in plants[pg 250]can be explained in purely mechanical terms, but they are only those which may occur also in non-living structures. The specific expressions of life cannot be explained in this way. He shows this more fully in regard to the most fundamental of all the vital processes in the plant-body—the breaking up of carbonic acid gas by the chlorophyll to obtain the carbon which is the fundamental element in all living organisms. We know the requisite conditions: the supply of raw material, and the sunlight from which the energy is derived. But how the chlorophyll makes use of these to effect the breaking up, and how it starts the subsequent syntheses of the carbon into the most complex organic compounds remains a mystery. And so on upwards through all the strictly vital phenomena.Wiesner's89view of things is essentially similar. He gives a very impressive picture of the mystery of the chemistry of the plant, showing how small is the number of food-stuffs and raw materials in comparison to the thousands of highly complex chemical substances which the plant produces, and how much work there is involved in de-oxydising the food and in forming syntheses. He, too, refuses, as usual, to postulate“vital force.”Yet to speak of“the fundamental peculiarities of the living matter inherent in the organism”and to admit that plants are“irritable,”“heliotropic,”“geotropic,”&c., amounts to much the same thing as postulating vital[pg 251]force; that is to say, to a mere naming of the specific problem of life without explaining it. The author himself admits this when he says in another place:“If I compare organisms with inorganic systems, I find that the progress of our knowledge is continually enlarging the gulf which separates the one from the other!”These anti-mechanical tendencies show themselves most emphatically in the work of Fr. Ludwig.90In his concluding chapter, after a discussion of the theories of Darwin, Nägeli, and Weismann, he postulates, for variation, heredity, and species-formation in particular,“forces other than physico-chemical,”“let us call them frankly psychical.”It is instructive to see how these“vitalistic”views crop up even in studies of detail and of the microscopically small, as for instance in E. Crato's“Beiträge zur Anatomie und Physiologie des Elementar-organismus.”How the living organism contains within itself what is in its turn living, down into ever smaller detail, (amœboid movements of certain plastines, physodes,) how incomparable the living organism is with a“machine,”to which its libellers are so fond of likening it, how it builds itself up, steers, and stokes itself, how it produces with“playful ease”the most marvellous and graceful forms, makes combinations and breaks them up, how analogous its whole activity is to“being able”and“willing,”all this is clearly brought out.91[pg 252]A very fresh and lucid presentation of the whole case is given by Borodin, Professor of Botany in St. Petersburg, in his essay,“Protoplasm and Vital Force.”92He sharply castigates the one-sidedness and impetuosity of the mechanical theory, as in Haeckel's discovery of Bathybius and of non-nucleated bacteria. The latter[pg 253]are problematical, and the former has been proved an illusion. To penetrate farther into the processes of life is simply to become aware of an ever-deepening series of riddles. There is no such thing as“protoplasm,”or“living proteid,”or indeed any unified, simple“living matter”whatever. Artificial“oil-emulsion amoebæ”93bear the same relation to living ones that Vaucanson's mechanical duck bears to a real one; that is, none at all. Our“protoplasm”is as mystical as the old“vital force,”and both are only camping-grounds for our ignorance. Neither the mechanical nor the atomic theory were the results of exact investigations; they were borrowed from philosophy. We do indeed investigate the typically vital process of irritability by physical methods. But the response made by the organism to physical coercion may be called a mockery of physics. The mechanists help themselves out with crude analogies from the mechanical, conceal the problem with the name“irritability,”and thus get rid of the greatest marvels. If vital force itself were to call out from its cells,“Here I am,”they would probably see in it only a remarkable case of“irritability.”Mechanism is no more positive knowledge than vitalism is; it is only the dogmatic faith of the majority of present-day naturalists.Constructive Criticism.Those whose protests we have hitherto been considering have not added to their criticism of the[pg 254]mechanical theory any positive contribution of their own, or at least they give nothing more than very slight hints pointing towards a psychical theory. But there are others who have sought to overcome the mechanical theory by gaining a deeper grasp of the nature of“force”in general. Their attempts have been of various kinds, but usually tend in one direction, which can perhaps be most precisely and briefly indicated through Lloyd Morgan's views, as summed up, for instance, in his essay on“Vitalism.”94In the beginning of biological text-books, we usually find (he says) a chapter on the nature of“force,”but it is“like grace before meat”—without influence on quality or digestion. Yet this problem must be cleared up before we can arrive at any understanding of the whole subject. In all attempts at“reducing to simpler terms,”it must be borne in mind that“force”reveals its nature in ever higher stages, of which every one is new. Even cohesion cannot be reduced to terms of gravitation, nor the chemical affinities and molecular forces to something more primitive. They are already something“outside the recognised order of nature.”In a still higher form force is expressed in the processes of crystallisation. At the formation of the first crystal there came into action a directing force of the same kind as the will of the sculptor at the making of the Venus of Melos. This new element, which intervenes every time, Lloyd Morgan regards, with Herbert[pg 255]Spencer (“Principles of Biology”), as“due to that ultimate reality which underlies this manifestation, as it underlies all other manifestations.”There can be no“understanding”in the sense of“getting behind things”: even the actions of“brute matter”cannot be“understood.”The play of chance not only does not explain the living; it does not even explain the not-living. But life in particular can neither be brought into the cell from without, nor be explained as simply“emerging from the co-operation of the components of the protoplasm,”and it is“in its essence not to be conceived in physico-chemical terms,”but represents“new modes of activity in the noumenal cause,”which, just because it is noumenal, is beyond our grasp. For only phenomena are“accessible to thought.”Among the biologists who concern themselves with deeper considerations, Oscar Hertwig,95the Director of the Anatomical Institute at Berlin, has expressed ideas similar to those we have been discussing, little as this may seem to be the case at first sight. He desires to oust the ordinary mechanism, so to speak, by replacing it by a mechanism of a higher order, and in making the attempt he examines and deepens the traditional ideas of causality and“force,”and defines the right and wrong of the quantitative-mathematical interpretation of nature in general, and of mechanics in particular. He[pg 256]follows confessedly in Lotze's path, not so much in regard to that thinker's insistence upon the association of the causal and the teleological modes of interpretation, as in modifying the idea of causality. O. Hertwig puts forward his own theories with special reference to those of W. Roux, the founder of the new“Science of the Future”—the mechanical, and therefore only scientific theory of development, which no longer only describes, but understands and causally explains phenomena (“Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik”). There are two kinds of mechanism (Hertwig says): that in the higher philosophical sense, and that in the purely physical sense. The former declares that all phenomena are connected by a guiding thread of causal connection and can be causally explained. As such, its application to the domain of vital phenomena is justifiable and self-evident. But it is not justifiable if cause be simply made identical with and limited to“force,”if the causal connection be only admitted in the technical sense of the transference and transformation of energy, and if, over and above, it is supposed to give an“explanation,”in the sense of an insight into things themselves. Even mechanics is (as Kirchoff maintained) a“descriptive”science. Hertwig agrees with Schopenhauer and Lotze in regarding every primitive natural“force”as unique, not reducible to simpler terms, but qualitatively distinct,—a“qualitas occulta,”capable not of physical but only of metaphysical explanation. And thus his conclusions imply rejection of mechanism in the cruder[pg 257]sense. As such, it has only a very limited sphere of action in the realm of the living. The history of mechanical interpretations is a history of their collapse. The attempt to derive the organic from the inorganic has often been made. But no such attempts have held the field for long. We can now say with some reason that“the gulf between the two kingdoms of nature has become deeper just in proportion as our physical and chemical, our morphological and physiological knowledge of the organism has deepened.”Mach's expression“mechanical mythology,”is quoted, and then a fine passage on the insufficiency of the mathematical view of things in general concludes thus:“Mathematics is only a method of thought, an excellent tool of the human mind, but it is very far from being the case that all thought and knowledge moves in this one direction, and that the content of our minds can ever find exhaustive expression through it alone.”In his“Theory of Dominants,”96Reinke, the botanist of Kiel, has attempted to formulate his opposition to the physico-chemical conception of life into a vitalistic theory of his own. Among biologists who confess themselves supporters of the mechanical theory, there are some who expressly reject explanations in terms of[pg 258]chemical and physical principles, and emphasise, more energetically than others, that these can only give rise to vital phenomena and complex processes of movement, on the basis of a most delicately differentiated structure and architecture of the living substance in its minute details, and from the egg onwards. They have created the strict“machine theory,”and they may be grouped together as the“tectonists.”“A watch that has been stamped to pieces is no longer a watch.”Thus the merely material and chemical is not the essential part of the living; it is the tectonic, the machinery of structure that is essential. The fundamental idea in this position is precisely that of Lotze. It is not a“mystical,”vital principle, that sets up, controls, and regulates the physical and chemical processes within the developed or developing organism. They receive their direction and impulse through the fact that they are associated with a given peculiar mechanical structure. This theory certainly contains all the monstrosities of preformation in the germ, the mythologies of the infinitely small, and it suffers shipwreck in ways as diverse as the number of its sides and parts. But it has the merit of clearly disclosing the impossibilities of purely chemical explanations. Reinke's“Theory of Dominants”started from such tectonic conceptions, and so originally did Driesch's Neovitalism, of which we shall presently have to speak.Reinke's theory has gone through several stages of[pg 259]development. At first its general tenor was as follows: Every living thing is typically different from everything that is not living. What explains this difference? Certainly not the hypothesis of vital force, which is far from being clear. The idea that forces of a psychic nature are inherent in the organism is also rejected. The illustration of a watch helps us to understand. The impelling force in it is certainly not merely the ordinary force of gravity or the general elasticity of steel. The efficacy of simple forces such as these can be increased in infinite diversity by the“construction of the apparatus”in which they operate. Life is the function of a quite unique, marvellously complex, inimitable combination of machines. If these be given, the most complex processes fulfil themselves of necessity and without the intervention of special vital forces. But how can they be“given”? The sole analogy to be found is the making of real machines, artificial products as distinguished from fortuitous products. They cannot be made without the influence and activity of intelligence. To explain the incomparably more ingenious and complex vital machine as due to a fortuitous origin and collocation of its individual parts would be more absurd than it would be to think of a watch being made in this way. The dominance of a creative idea cannot but be recognised. An intelligent natural force which is conscious of its aims and calculates its means must be presupposed, if we are really to[pg 260]satisfy our sense of causality. It is a matter of personal conviction whether we find this force in“God”or in the“Absolute.”These views are more fully developed in the theory of dominants expounded in Reinke's later work,“Die Welt as Tat”(after what has been said the meaning of the title will be self-evident), and in his“Theoretische Biologie.”97Very vigorous and convincing are the author's objections to the naturalistic theories of organic life, especially to the“self-origin”of the living, or spontaneous generation. In all vital processes we must reckon with a“physiologicalx,”which cannot be eliminated, which gives to life its unique and underivable character. There are“secondary forces,”“superforces,”“dominants,”which bring about what is peculiar in vital functions and direct their processes.“Vitalism”in the strict sense is thus here also rejected. The machine-theory is held valid. There are“dominants”even in our tools and utensils, in our hammer and spoon, and the“operation”of these cannot be explained merely physico-chemically, but through the dominants of the form, structure and composition, with which they have been invested by intelligence. The association with the views of the tectonists is so far quite apparent. But the idea of“dominants”soon broadens out. We find dominants of form-development,[pg 261]of evolution, and so on. What were at first only peculiarities of structure and architecture have grown almost unawares into dynamic principles of form which have nothing more to do with the mechanical theory, and which, because of their dualistic nature, result in conclusions and modes of explanation which can hardly be called very useful. The lines along which the idea has developed are intelligible enough. It started originally from that of the organism as a finished product, functioning actively, especially in its metabolism. Here the comparison with a steam engine with self-regulators and automatic whistles is admissible, and one may speak of dominants in the sense of mechanical dominants. But the idea thus started was pressed into general service. And thus arose dominants of development, of morphogenesis, even of phylogenetic evolution (“phylogenetic evolution-potential”). New dominants are added, and the theory advances farther and farther from the“machine theory,”becomes ever more enigmatical, and more vitalistic.The Constructive Work of Driesch.What in Reinke's case came about almost unperceived, Driesch did with full consciousness and intention, following the necessity laid upon him by his own gradual personal development and by his consistent, tenacious prosecution of the problem. The acuteness of his thinking, the concentration of his endeavours[pg 262]through long years, his comprehensive knowledge and mastery of the material, the deep logicalness and consistent evolution of his“standpoints,”and his philosophical and theoretical grasp of the subject make him probably the most instructive type, indeed, we may almost say, the very incarnation of the whole disputed question. In 1891 he published his“Mathematisch—mechanische Betrachtung morphologischer Probleme der Biologie,”the work in which he first touched the depths of the problem. It is directed chiefly against the merely“historical”methods in biology, used by the current schools in the form of Darwinism. Darwinism and the Theory of Descent have been so far nothing more than“galleries of ancestors,”and the science ranged under their banner is only descriptive, not explanatory. Instead of setting up contingent theories we must form a“conception”of the internal necessity, inherent in the substratum itself, in accordance with which the forms of life have found expression—a necessity corresponding to that which conditions the form-development of the crystal.Experimental investigations and discoveries, and further reflection, resulted, in 1892, in his“Entwicklungsmechanische Studien,”and led him to insist on the need for what the title of his next year's work calls“Biologie als selbständige Grundwissenschaft.”In this work two important points are emphasised. The first is, that biology must certainly strive after precision,[pg 263]but that this precision consists not in subordination to, but in co-ordination with physics. Biology must rank side by side with physics as an“independent fundamental science,”and that in the form of tectonic. And the second point is, that the teleological point of view must take its place beside the causal. Only by recognising both can biology become a complete science.In the“Analytische Theorie der organischen Entwicklung”(1894) Driesch picks up the thread where he dropped it in the book before, and spins it farther,“traversing”his previous theoretical and experimental results. In this work the author still strives to remain within the frame of the tectonic and machine-theory, but the edges are already showing signs of giving way. Life, he says, is a mechanism based upon a given structure (it is however a machine which is constantly modifying and developing itself). Ontogenesis98is a strictly causal nexus, but following“a natural law the workings of which are entirely enigmatical”(with Wigand). Causality fulfils itself through“liberations,”that is to say, cause and effect are not quantitatively equivalent; and all effect is, notwithstanding its causal conditioning, something absolutely new and not to be calculated from the cause, so that there can be no question[pg 264]of mechanism in the strict sense. And the whole is directed by purpose.99The vital processes compel us to admit that it seems“as if intelligence determined quality and order.”Driesch still tries to reconcile causes and purposes as different“modes of regarding things,”but this device he afterwards abandons. We cannot penetrate to the nature of things either by the causal or by the teleological method. But they are—as Kant maintained—two modes of looking at things, both of which are postulates of our capacity for knowing. Each must stand by itself, and neither can have its sequence disturbed by the interpolation of pieces from the other. In the domain of the causal there can be no teleological explanation, and conversely; one might as well seek for an optical explanation of the synthesis of water; but both are true in their own place. The Madonna della Sedia, looked at microscopically, is a mass of blots, looked at macroscopically it is a picture. And it“is”both of these.Driesch's conclusions continue to advance, led steadily onwards by his experimental studies. In the“Maschinentheorie des Lebens,”100he attacks his own earlier theories with praiseworthy determination, and remorselessly pursues them to the monstrous conclusions to which they lead, and shows that they necessarily perish[pg 265]because of these. He had previously declared, at first emphatically, later with hesitation (we have already seen why), that every single vital process is of a physico-chemical kind, on the basis of a given“structure”of living beings. But now he considers the living organism as itself a result of vital processes—that is, of development. If this also is to be explained mechanically (as physico-chemical processes based on material structure), then the ovum must possessin parvothis infinitely fine structure, by virtue of which it fulfils its own physiological processes of maintenance, and also becomes the efficient cause of the subsequent development. It must bear the type of the individual and of the species, as a rudiment (or primordium) within its own structure. Every specific type must, however, according to the theory of descent, be derived through an endless process of evolution, by gradual stages, from some primitive organism. Just as in the mechanical becoming of the individual organism, so the primitive protovum must also be extraordinarily intricate and complex in its organisation if it is to give rise to all the processes of evolution and development involved in the succeeding ontogenies, phylogenies, regenerations, and so forth. This is a necessary conclusion if the machine-theory be correct, and if we refuse to admit that vital phenomena are governed by specific laws. This consequence is monstrous, and the theory of the tectonists therefore false. But if it be false, what then?[pg 266]Driesch answers this question in the books published in subsequent years.101In these he attains his final standpoint, and makes it more and more secure. The“machine-theory,”and all others like it, are now definitely abandoned. They represent the uncritical dogmatism of a materialistic mode of thought, which binds all phenomena to substance, and refuses to admit any immaterial or dynamic phenomena. The alleged initial structure is nowhere to be found. The pursuit of things into the most minute details leads to no indication of it. The chromatin, in which the most important vital processes have their basis, is very far from having this machine-like structure; it is homogeneous. The formation of the skeleton, for instance, of a Plubeus larva is due to migratory spontaneously moving cells (comparable to the leucocytes of our own body, whose migrations and activities remind one much more of a social organism than of a machine). The organism arises, not from mechanical, but from“harmoniously-equipotential systems”: that is to say, from systems every element of which has equal functional efficiency; so that each individual part bears within itself in an equal degree the potentiality of the whole—an impossibility from the mechanical point of view.[pg 267]Driesch had given an experimental basis for this theory at an earlier stage, in his experiments on the initial stages of the development of sea-urchins, starfishes, zoophytes, and the like. A Planarian worm cut into pieces developed a new worm of smaller size from each part. A mutilated Pluteus larva developed a new food-canal, and restored the whole typical form. His experiment of 1892 went farther still, for he succeeded in separating the first four segmentation-cells of the sea-urchin's egg; and from each cell obtained a developing embryo. These facts, he maintains, compel us to assume a mode of occurrence which is dynamicallysui generis, a“prospective tendency”which is a sub-concept in the Aristotelian“Dynamis.”And the essential difference between this kind of operation and a mechanical operation is, that the same typical effect is always reached, even if the whole normal causal nexus be disturbed. Even when forced into circuitous paths the embryo advances towards the same goal. Thus“vitalism,”that is, the independence and autonomy of the vital processes, is proved. The effect required is attained through“action at a distance,”a mode of happening which is specifically different from anything to be found in the inorganic world, and which has itsdirective, for instance, in the regeneration of lost parts,[pg 268]notin anything corporeal or substantial, but in the end to be attained.In his work on“Organic Regulations,”Driesch collects from the most diverse biological fields more and more astonishing proofs of the activity of the living as contrasted with physico-chemical phenomena, and of the marvellous power the organism has to“help itself”and to attain the typical form and reach the end aimed at, even under the greatest diversity in the chain of conditions. The material here brought forward is enormous, and the author's grasp of it very remarkable; and not the least of the merits of the book is, that the bewildering wealth and diversity of these phenomena, which are usually presented to us as isolated and uncoordinated instances, is here definitely systematised according to their characteristic peculiarities, and from the point of view of the increasing distinctness of the“autonomy”of the processes. The system begins with the active regulatory functions of living matter in the chemistry of metabolism (see particularly the phenomena of immunisation), and ascends through different stages up to the regulations of regeneration. There could be no more impressive way of showing how little life and its“regulations”can be compared to the“self-regulations”of machines, or to the restoring of typical states of equilibrium and of form in the physical and chemical domain, to which the mechanists are fond of referring.The facts thus empirically brought together are then[pg 269]linked together in a theory, and considered epistemologically. We may leave out of account all that is included in the treatment of modern idealism, immanence-philosophy, and solipsism. All this does not arise directly out of the vitalistic ideas, though the latter are fitted into an idealistic framework. Extremely vivid is the excursus on respiration and assimilation. (All processes of building up and breaking down take place within the organism under conditions notoriously different from those obtaining in the laboratory. It is radically impossible to speak of a living“substance”according to the formula CxHyOz, which assimilates and disassimilates itself [sibi].) Excellent, too, are Driesch's remarks on materialistic elucidations of inheritance and morphogenesis. It is quite impossible to succeed with epigenetic speculations on a material basis (cf.Haacke). Weismann is so far right, he admits, from his materialistic premisses when he starts with preformations. But his theory, and all others of the kind, can do nothing more than make an infinitely small photograph of the difficulty. They“explain”the processes of form-development and the regeneration of animals and plants, by constructing infinitely small animals and plants, which develop their form and regenerate lost parts. And Driesch holds it to be impossible to distribute a complicated tectonic among the elements of an equipotential system. In denying the materialistic theory of development, Driesch again determinedly“traverses”[pg 270]his own earlier views. He does this, too, when he now rejects the reconciliation between causality and teleology as different modes of looking at things. The teleological now seems to him itself a factor playing a part in the chain of causes, and thus making it teleological. The key-word of all is to him the“entelechy”of Aristotle.In his last work on“The Soul,”Driesch follows the impossibilities of the mechanical theories from the domain of vital processes into that of behaviour and voluntary actions.The Views of Albrecht and Schneider.An outlook and interpretation which Driesch102maintained for a while, but afterwards abandoned, has been developed in an original and peculiar fashion by Eugen Albrecht, Prosector and Pathologist in Munich.103It is the theory of different ways of looking at things. Albrecht indeed firmly adheres to the chemical and physical interpretation of vital processes, regards[pg 271]approximate completeness along these lines as the ideal of science, and maintains their essential sufficiency. But he holds that the mechanists have been mistaken and one-sided in that they have upheld this interpretation and mode of considering things as the sole and the“true”one. According to our subjective attitude to things and their changes, they appear to us in quite different series of associations, each of which forms a complete series in itself, running parallel to the others, but not intruding to fill up gaps in them. Microscopic and macroscopic study of things illustrate such separate and complete series. The classical example for the whole theory is the psycho-physical parallelism. Psychical phenomena are not“explained”when the correlated line of material changes and the phenomena of the nervous system have been traced out. Similarly with the series of“vital”phenomena,“vital”interpretation from the point of view of the“living organism,”runs parallel to, but distinct from the chemical and physical analyses of vital processes. But each of these parallel ways of regarding things is“true.”For the current separation of the“appearance”and“nature”of things is false, since it assumes that only one of the possible ways of regarding things,e.g., the mechanical-causal mode of interpretation is essential, and that all the others deal only with associated appearance.The idea that only one or two of these series can represent the“true nature”of the phenomenon“can[pg 272]only be called cheap dogma.”Each series is complete in itself, and every successive phase follows directly and without a break from the antecedent one, which alone explains it. In this lies the relative justification of the ever-recurring reactions to“vitalism.”This theory of Albrecht's has all the charms and difficulties, or impossibilities, of parallelistic interpretations in general. Its validity might be discussed with reference to the particular case of psycho-physical parallelism.104To make a sound basis for itself it would require first to clear up the causality problem, and to answer, or at least definitely formulate the great question whether causing (Bewirkung) is to be replaced by mere necessary sequence—for this is where it ends. The conclusion which, with regard to biological methods and ideals, seems to make all concessions to the purely mechanical mode of interpretation, is not sufficiently obvious from the premisses. If the vital series be a“real”one, we should expect that a“vitalistic”mode of interpretation, with methods and aims of its own, would be required, just as a special science of psychology is required. The assumption that each series is complete without a break, and that an all-including analysis of vital processes in terms of mechanical processes must[pg 273]ultimately be possible, is apetitio principii, and breaks down before the objections raised by the vitalists. The most central problem in the whole matter, namely, the relation of the causal to the teleological, has not been touched. These two concepts would, of course, not yield“parallels,”but would be different points of view, which could eventually be applied to each series.K. Camillo Schneider,105Privatdozent in Vienna, uses the soul, the psychical in the true sense, as the explanation[pg 274]of the vital. What had been thought secretly and individually by some of the vitalists already mentioned, but had, so to speak, cropped up only as the incidentally revealed reverse side of their negations of mechanism, Schneider attempts definitely to formulate into a theory. The chief merit of his book on“Vitalism”is to be found, in Chapters II. to X., in his thorough discussion of the chemical, physical, and mechanical theories along the special lines of each.The list of critics might be added to, and the number of standpoints in opposition to mechanism greatly increased. This diversity of standpoint, and the individual way in which each independent thinker reacts from the mechanical theory shows that here, as also in regard to Darwin's theory of selection, we have to do with a dogmatic theory and a forced simplification of phenomena, not with an objective and calm consideration of things as they are. It is a theory wheresimplexhas becomesigillum falsi.How all this affects the Religious Outlook.These denials and destructive criticisms of the mechanical theory, which are now continually cropping up,[pg 275]lead, as must be obvious, towards a deeper conception and interpretation of reality in general, and towards a religious conception in particular. Unquestionably the most important fact in connection with them is the fresh revelation of the depth of things and of appearance, the increased recognition that our knowledge is only leading us towards mystery.It is indeed questionable whether anything more than this can be said in regard to the problem of life, whether we ought not to content ourselves with recognising the limits of our knowledge, and reject all positive statements that go beyond these limits. For the mechanists are undoubtedly right in this, that“entelechy,”“the idea of the whole,”“co-operation,”“guidance,”“psychical factors,”and the like, are only names for riddles, and do not in themselves constitute knowledge.106The case here is somewhat similar to what we have already seen in connection with“antinomies.”They, too, give us no positive insight into the true nature of things, but they at any rate prove to us that we have not yet understood what that is. And, just as they show us that our knowledge of the world as it appears to us can never be complete, so here it appears that we come upon inexplicabilities even within the domain accessible to our knowledge.[pg 276]Thus the religious conception of the world gains something here as from the antinomies, namely, a fresh proof that the world which appears to us and can be comprehended by us, proclaims its true nature and depths, but does not reveal them. Perhaps there is still another gain. For in any case the vital processes and the marvels of evolution and development are examples of the way in which physical processes are constantly subject to a peculiar guidance, which certainly cannot be explained from themselves or in terms of mechanism, organisation, and the like. All attempts to demonstrate this in detail, all“explanations”in terms of dynamic co-operation, of dominants, of ideas, or anything else, are vague, and seem to go to pieces when we try to take firm hold of them. But the fact remains none the less.May not this be a paradigm of the processes and development of the world at large, and even of evolution in the domain of history? Here, too, all ideas of guidance, of endeavour after an aim, &c., which philosophical study of history or religious intuition seems to find, make shipwreck against the fact that every attempt to demonstrate their nature, fails. All these theories of influx, concursus, and so on, whether transcendental or immanent factors be employed, immediately become wooden, and never admit of verification in detail. But precisely the same is true of the dominance of the“idea,”or of the“law[pg 277]of evolution,”or of the“potential of development”in every developing organism. Yet incomprehensible and undemonstrable in detail as this“dominance”is, and completely as it may be concealed behind the play of physical causes, it is there, none the less.
The Views of Botanists Illustrated.It might have been expected that in the domain of plant-biology, if anywhere, the mechanistic standpoint would have been the prevailing one. For it is almost a matter of course to regard plants as devoid of sensation or“psychical”life, and as mechanical systems, chemical laboratories, and reflex mechanisms, and this way of regarding them has been made easy by the very marked uniformity and lack of spontaneity in their vital processes as compared with those of animals. But it is not the case that mechanical theories have here prevailed. The opposition to them is just as great here as elsewhere, and from the days of Wigand onwards it has been almost continuously sustained.88Very characteristic is[pg 249]Pfeffer's“Pflanzen-Physiologie”(1897), which is written professedly from the mechanist point of view.“Vitalism,”according to this authority, is to be rejected, but instead of“vital force”he offers us“given properties,”and the alleged machine-like collocations of the most minute elements. In regard, for instance, to the riddle of development and morphogenesis, we must simply accept it as a“given property,”that the acorn grows in an oak and nothing else. The chemical explanation of the vital functions of protoplasm is also to be rejected; as a shattered watch is no longer a watch though it remains chemically the same, so it is with protoplasm. The available chemical knowledge of the substances of which protoplasm is made up is insufficient to render the vital processes intelligible. Here, as everywhere else, we have to reckon with ultimate“properties (entities), which we neither can, nor desire to analyse further.”“The human mind is no more capable of forming a conception of the ultimate cause of things than of eternity.”If all the views here indicated were followed out to their logical conclusions, they would hinder rather than further the process of reduction to terms of physico-chemical sequences.Kerner von Marilaun in his“Pflanzenleben”deliberately takes up a thorough-going vitalist position, and on this point as well as on many others he opposed the current theory of the school (Darwinism). It is true, he admits, that many of the phenomena in plants[pg 250]can be explained in purely mechanical terms, but they are only those which may occur also in non-living structures. The specific expressions of life cannot be explained in this way. He shows this more fully in regard to the most fundamental of all the vital processes in the plant-body—the breaking up of carbonic acid gas by the chlorophyll to obtain the carbon which is the fundamental element in all living organisms. We know the requisite conditions: the supply of raw material, and the sunlight from which the energy is derived. But how the chlorophyll makes use of these to effect the breaking up, and how it starts the subsequent syntheses of the carbon into the most complex organic compounds remains a mystery. And so on upwards through all the strictly vital phenomena.Wiesner's89view of things is essentially similar. He gives a very impressive picture of the mystery of the chemistry of the plant, showing how small is the number of food-stuffs and raw materials in comparison to the thousands of highly complex chemical substances which the plant produces, and how much work there is involved in de-oxydising the food and in forming syntheses. He, too, refuses, as usual, to postulate“vital force.”Yet to speak of“the fundamental peculiarities of the living matter inherent in the organism”and to admit that plants are“irritable,”“heliotropic,”“geotropic,”&c., amounts to much the same thing as postulating vital[pg 251]force; that is to say, to a mere naming of the specific problem of life without explaining it. The author himself admits this when he says in another place:“If I compare organisms with inorganic systems, I find that the progress of our knowledge is continually enlarging the gulf which separates the one from the other!”These anti-mechanical tendencies show themselves most emphatically in the work of Fr. Ludwig.90In his concluding chapter, after a discussion of the theories of Darwin, Nägeli, and Weismann, he postulates, for variation, heredity, and species-formation in particular,“forces other than physico-chemical,”“let us call them frankly psychical.”It is instructive to see how these“vitalistic”views crop up even in studies of detail and of the microscopically small, as for instance in E. Crato's“Beiträge zur Anatomie und Physiologie des Elementar-organismus.”How the living organism contains within itself what is in its turn living, down into ever smaller detail, (amœboid movements of certain plastines, physodes,) how incomparable the living organism is with a“machine,”to which its libellers are so fond of likening it, how it builds itself up, steers, and stokes itself, how it produces with“playful ease”the most marvellous and graceful forms, makes combinations and breaks them up, how analogous its whole activity is to“being able”and“willing,”all this is clearly brought out.91[pg 252]A very fresh and lucid presentation of the whole case is given by Borodin, Professor of Botany in St. Petersburg, in his essay,“Protoplasm and Vital Force.”92He sharply castigates the one-sidedness and impetuosity of the mechanical theory, as in Haeckel's discovery of Bathybius and of non-nucleated bacteria. The latter[pg 253]are problematical, and the former has been proved an illusion. To penetrate farther into the processes of life is simply to become aware of an ever-deepening series of riddles. There is no such thing as“protoplasm,”or“living proteid,”or indeed any unified, simple“living matter”whatever. Artificial“oil-emulsion amoebæ”93bear the same relation to living ones that Vaucanson's mechanical duck bears to a real one; that is, none at all. Our“protoplasm”is as mystical as the old“vital force,”and both are only camping-grounds for our ignorance. Neither the mechanical nor the atomic theory were the results of exact investigations; they were borrowed from philosophy. We do indeed investigate the typically vital process of irritability by physical methods. But the response made by the organism to physical coercion may be called a mockery of physics. The mechanists help themselves out with crude analogies from the mechanical, conceal the problem with the name“irritability,”and thus get rid of the greatest marvels. If vital force itself were to call out from its cells,“Here I am,”they would probably see in it only a remarkable case of“irritability.”Mechanism is no more positive knowledge than vitalism is; it is only the dogmatic faith of the majority of present-day naturalists.Constructive Criticism.Those whose protests we have hitherto been considering have not added to their criticism of the[pg 254]mechanical theory any positive contribution of their own, or at least they give nothing more than very slight hints pointing towards a psychical theory. But there are others who have sought to overcome the mechanical theory by gaining a deeper grasp of the nature of“force”in general. Their attempts have been of various kinds, but usually tend in one direction, which can perhaps be most precisely and briefly indicated through Lloyd Morgan's views, as summed up, for instance, in his essay on“Vitalism.”94In the beginning of biological text-books, we usually find (he says) a chapter on the nature of“force,”but it is“like grace before meat”—without influence on quality or digestion. Yet this problem must be cleared up before we can arrive at any understanding of the whole subject. In all attempts at“reducing to simpler terms,”it must be borne in mind that“force”reveals its nature in ever higher stages, of which every one is new. Even cohesion cannot be reduced to terms of gravitation, nor the chemical affinities and molecular forces to something more primitive. They are already something“outside the recognised order of nature.”In a still higher form force is expressed in the processes of crystallisation. At the formation of the first crystal there came into action a directing force of the same kind as the will of the sculptor at the making of the Venus of Melos. This new element, which intervenes every time, Lloyd Morgan regards, with Herbert[pg 255]Spencer (“Principles of Biology”), as“due to that ultimate reality which underlies this manifestation, as it underlies all other manifestations.”There can be no“understanding”in the sense of“getting behind things”: even the actions of“brute matter”cannot be“understood.”The play of chance not only does not explain the living; it does not even explain the not-living. But life in particular can neither be brought into the cell from without, nor be explained as simply“emerging from the co-operation of the components of the protoplasm,”and it is“in its essence not to be conceived in physico-chemical terms,”but represents“new modes of activity in the noumenal cause,”which, just because it is noumenal, is beyond our grasp. For only phenomena are“accessible to thought.”Among the biologists who concern themselves with deeper considerations, Oscar Hertwig,95the Director of the Anatomical Institute at Berlin, has expressed ideas similar to those we have been discussing, little as this may seem to be the case at first sight. He desires to oust the ordinary mechanism, so to speak, by replacing it by a mechanism of a higher order, and in making the attempt he examines and deepens the traditional ideas of causality and“force,”and defines the right and wrong of the quantitative-mathematical interpretation of nature in general, and of mechanics in particular. He[pg 256]follows confessedly in Lotze's path, not so much in regard to that thinker's insistence upon the association of the causal and the teleological modes of interpretation, as in modifying the idea of causality. O. Hertwig puts forward his own theories with special reference to those of W. Roux, the founder of the new“Science of the Future”—the mechanical, and therefore only scientific theory of development, which no longer only describes, but understands and causally explains phenomena (“Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik”). There are two kinds of mechanism (Hertwig says): that in the higher philosophical sense, and that in the purely physical sense. The former declares that all phenomena are connected by a guiding thread of causal connection and can be causally explained. As such, its application to the domain of vital phenomena is justifiable and self-evident. But it is not justifiable if cause be simply made identical with and limited to“force,”if the causal connection be only admitted in the technical sense of the transference and transformation of energy, and if, over and above, it is supposed to give an“explanation,”in the sense of an insight into things themselves. Even mechanics is (as Kirchoff maintained) a“descriptive”science. Hertwig agrees with Schopenhauer and Lotze in regarding every primitive natural“force”as unique, not reducible to simpler terms, but qualitatively distinct,—a“qualitas occulta,”capable not of physical but only of metaphysical explanation. And thus his conclusions imply rejection of mechanism in the cruder[pg 257]sense. As such, it has only a very limited sphere of action in the realm of the living. The history of mechanical interpretations is a history of their collapse. The attempt to derive the organic from the inorganic has often been made. But no such attempts have held the field for long. We can now say with some reason that“the gulf between the two kingdoms of nature has become deeper just in proportion as our physical and chemical, our morphological and physiological knowledge of the organism has deepened.”Mach's expression“mechanical mythology,”is quoted, and then a fine passage on the insufficiency of the mathematical view of things in general concludes thus:“Mathematics is only a method of thought, an excellent tool of the human mind, but it is very far from being the case that all thought and knowledge moves in this one direction, and that the content of our minds can ever find exhaustive expression through it alone.”In his“Theory of Dominants,”96Reinke, the botanist of Kiel, has attempted to formulate his opposition to the physico-chemical conception of life into a vitalistic theory of his own. Among biologists who confess themselves supporters of the mechanical theory, there are some who expressly reject explanations in terms of[pg 258]chemical and physical principles, and emphasise, more energetically than others, that these can only give rise to vital phenomena and complex processes of movement, on the basis of a most delicately differentiated structure and architecture of the living substance in its minute details, and from the egg onwards. They have created the strict“machine theory,”and they may be grouped together as the“tectonists.”“A watch that has been stamped to pieces is no longer a watch.”Thus the merely material and chemical is not the essential part of the living; it is the tectonic, the machinery of structure that is essential. The fundamental idea in this position is precisely that of Lotze. It is not a“mystical,”vital principle, that sets up, controls, and regulates the physical and chemical processes within the developed or developing organism. They receive their direction and impulse through the fact that they are associated with a given peculiar mechanical structure. This theory certainly contains all the monstrosities of preformation in the germ, the mythologies of the infinitely small, and it suffers shipwreck in ways as diverse as the number of its sides and parts. But it has the merit of clearly disclosing the impossibilities of purely chemical explanations. Reinke's“Theory of Dominants”started from such tectonic conceptions, and so originally did Driesch's Neovitalism, of which we shall presently have to speak.Reinke's theory has gone through several stages of[pg 259]development. At first its general tenor was as follows: Every living thing is typically different from everything that is not living. What explains this difference? Certainly not the hypothesis of vital force, which is far from being clear. The idea that forces of a psychic nature are inherent in the organism is also rejected. The illustration of a watch helps us to understand. The impelling force in it is certainly not merely the ordinary force of gravity or the general elasticity of steel. The efficacy of simple forces such as these can be increased in infinite diversity by the“construction of the apparatus”in which they operate. Life is the function of a quite unique, marvellously complex, inimitable combination of machines. If these be given, the most complex processes fulfil themselves of necessity and without the intervention of special vital forces. But how can they be“given”? The sole analogy to be found is the making of real machines, artificial products as distinguished from fortuitous products. They cannot be made without the influence and activity of intelligence. To explain the incomparably more ingenious and complex vital machine as due to a fortuitous origin and collocation of its individual parts would be more absurd than it would be to think of a watch being made in this way. The dominance of a creative idea cannot but be recognised. An intelligent natural force which is conscious of its aims and calculates its means must be presupposed, if we are really to[pg 260]satisfy our sense of causality. It is a matter of personal conviction whether we find this force in“God”or in the“Absolute.”These views are more fully developed in the theory of dominants expounded in Reinke's later work,“Die Welt as Tat”(after what has been said the meaning of the title will be self-evident), and in his“Theoretische Biologie.”97Very vigorous and convincing are the author's objections to the naturalistic theories of organic life, especially to the“self-origin”of the living, or spontaneous generation. In all vital processes we must reckon with a“physiologicalx,”which cannot be eliminated, which gives to life its unique and underivable character. There are“secondary forces,”“superforces,”“dominants,”which bring about what is peculiar in vital functions and direct their processes.“Vitalism”in the strict sense is thus here also rejected. The machine-theory is held valid. There are“dominants”even in our tools and utensils, in our hammer and spoon, and the“operation”of these cannot be explained merely physico-chemically, but through the dominants of the form, structure and composition, with which they have been invested by intelligence. The association with the views of the tectonists is so far quite apparent. But the idea of“dominants”soon broadens out. We find dominants of form-development,[pg 261]of evolution, and so on. What were at first only peculiarities of structure and architecture have grown almost unawares into dynamic principles of form which have nothing more to do with the mechanical theory, and which, because of their dualistic nature, result in conclusions and modes of explanation which can hardly be called very useful. The lines along which the idea has developed are intelligible enough. It started originally from that of the organism as a finished product, functioning actively, especially in its metabolism. Here the comparison with a steam engine with self-regulators and automatic whistles is admissible, and one may speak of dominants in the sense of mechanical dominants. But the idea thus started was pressed into general service. And thus arose dominants of development, of morphogenesis, even of phylogenetic evolution (“phylogenetic evolution-potential”). New dominants are added, and the theory advances farther and farther from the“machine theory,”becomes ever more enigmatical, and more vitalistic.The Constructive Work of Driesch.What in Reinke's case came about almost unperceived, Driesch did with full consciousness and intention, following the necessity laid upon him by his own gradual personal development and by his consistent, tenacious prosecution of the problem. The acuteness of his thinking, the concentration of his endeavours[pg 262]through long years, his comprehensive knowledge and mastery of the material, the deep logicalness and consistent evolution of his“standpoints,”and his philosophical and theoretical grasp of the subject make him probably the most instructive type, indeed, we may almost say, the very incarnation of the whole disputed question. In 1891 he published his“Mathematisch—mechanische Betrachtung morphologischer Probleme der Biologie,”the work in which he first touched the depths of the problem. It is directed chiefly against the merely“historical”methods in biology, used by the current schools in the form of Darwinism. Darwinism and the Theory of Descent have been so far nothing more than“galleries of ancestors,”and the science ranged under their banner is only descriptive, not explanatory. Instead of setting up contingent theories we must form a“conception”of the internal necessity, inherent in the substratum itself, in accordance with which the forms of life have found expression—a necessity corresponding to that which conditions the form-development of the crystal.Experimental investigations and discoveries, and further reflection, resulted, in 1892, in his“Entwicklungsmechanische Studien,”and led him to insist on the need for what the title of his next year's work calls“Biologie als selbständige Grundwissenschaft.”In this work two important points are emphasised. The first is, that biology must certainly strive after precision,[pg 263]but that this precision consists not in subordination to, but in co-ordination with physics. Biology must rank side by side with physics as an“independent fundamental science,”and that in the form of tectonic. And the second point is, that the teleological point of view must take its place beside the causal. Only by recognising both can biology become a complete science.In the“Analytische Theorie der organischen Entwicklung”(1894) Driesch picks up the thread where he dropped it in the book before, and spins it farther,“traversing”his previous theoretical and experimental results. In this work the author still strives to remain within the frame of the tectonic and machine-theory, but the edges are already showing signs of giving way. Life, he says, is a mechanism based upon a given structure (it is however a machine which is constantly modifying and developing itself). Ontogenesis98is a strictly causal nexus, but following“a natural law the workings of which are entirely enigmatical”(with Wigand). Causality fulfils itself through“liberations,”that is to say, cause and effect are not quantitatively equivalent; and all effect is, notwithstanding its causal conditioning, something absolutely new and not to be calculated from the cause, so that there can be no question[pg 264]of mechanism in the strict sense. And the whole is directed by purpose.99The vital processes compel us to admit that it seems“as if intelligence determined quality and order.”Driesch still tries to reconcile causes and purposes as different“modes of regarding things,”but this device he afterwards abandons. We cannot penetrate to the nature of things either by the causal or by the teleological method. But they are—as Kant maintained—two modes of looking at things, both of which are postulates of our capacity for knowing. Each must stand by itself, and neither can have its sequence disturbed by the interpolation of pieces from the other. In the domain of the causal there can be no teleological explanation, and conversely; one might as well seek for an optical explanation of the synthesis of water; but both are true in their own place. The Madonna della Sedia, looked at microscopically, is a mass of blots, looked at macroscopically it is a picture. And it“is”both of these.Driesch's conclusions continue to advance, led steadily onwards by his experimental studies. In the“Maschinentheorie des Lebens,”100he attacks his own earlier theories with praiseworthy determination, and remorselessly pursues them to the monstrous conclusions to which they lead, and shows that they necessarily perish[pg 265]because of these. He had previously declared, at first emphatically, later with hesitation (we have already seen why), that every single vital process is of a physico-chemical kind, on the basis of a given“structure”of living beings. But now he considers the living organism as itself a result of vital processes—that is, of development. If this also is to be explained mechanically (as physico-chemical processes based on material structure), then the ovum must possessin parvothis infinitely fine structure, by virtue of which it fulfils its own physiological processes of maintenance, and also becomes the efficient cause of the subsequent development. It must bear the type of the individual and of the species, as a rudiment (or primordium) within its own structure. Every specific type must, however, according to the theory of descent, be derived through an endless process of evolution, by gradual stages, from some primitive organism. Just as in the mechanical becoming of the individual organism, so the primitive protovum must also be extraordinarily intricate and complex in its organisation if it is to give rise to all the processes of evolution and development involved in the succeeding ontogenies, phylogenies, regenerations, and so forth. This is a necessary conclusion if the machine-theory be correct, and if we refuse to admit that vital phenomena are governed by specific laws. This consequence is monstrous, and the theory of the tectonists therefore false. But if it be false, what then?[pg 266]Driesch answers this question in the books published in subsequent years.101In these he attains his final standpoint, and makes it more and more secure. The“machine-theory,”and all others like it, are now definitely abandoned. They represent the uncritical dogmatism of a materialistic mode of thought, which binds all phenomena to substance, and refuses to admit any immaterial or dynamic phenomena. The alleged initial structure is nowhere to be found. The pursuit of things into the most minute details leads to no indication of it. The chromatin, in which the most important vital processes have their basis, is very far from having this machine-like structure; it is homogeneous. The formation of the skeleton, for instance, of a Plubeus larva is due to migratory spontaneously moving cells (comparable to the leucocytes of our own body, whose migrations and activities remind one much more of a social organism than of a machine). The organism arises, not from mechanical, but from“harmoniously-equipotential systems”: that is to say, from systems every element of which has equal functional efficiency; so that each individual part bears within itself in an equal degree the potentiality of the whole—an impossibility from the mechanical point of view.[pg 267]Driesch had given an experimental basis for this theory at an earlier stage, in his experiments on the initial stages of the development of sea-urchins, starfishes, zoophytes, and the like. A Planarian worm cut into pieces developed a new worm of smaller size from each part. A mutilated Pluteus larva developed a new food-canal, and restored the whole typical form. His experiment of 1892 went farther still, for he succeeded in separating the first four segmentation-cells of the sea-urchin's egg; and from each cell obtained a developing embryo. These facts, he maintains, compel us to assume a mode of occurrence which is dynamicallysui generis, a“prospective tendency”which is a sub-concept in the Aristotelian“Dynamis.”And the essential difference between this kind of operation and a mechanical operation is, that the same typical effect is always reached, even if the whole normal causal nexus be disturbed. Even when forced into circuitous paths the embryo advances towards the same goal. Thus“vitalism,”that is, the independence and autonomy of the vital processes, is proved. The effect required is attained through“action at a distance,”a mode of happening which is specifically different from anything to be found in the inorganic world, and which has itsdirective, for instance, in the regeneration of lost parts,[pg 268]notin anything corporeal or substantial, but in the end to be attained.In his work on“Organic Regulations,”Driesch collects from the most diverse biological fields more and more astonishing proofs of the activity of the living as contrasted with physico-chemical phenomena, and of the marvellous power the organism has to“help itself”and to attain the typical form and reach the end aimed at, even under the greatest diversity in the chain of conditions. The material here brought forward is enormous, and the author's grasp of it very remarkable; and not the least of the merits of the book is, that the bewildering wealth and diversity of these phenomena, which are usually presented to us as isolated and uncoordinated instances, is here definitely systematised according to their characteristic peculiarities, and from the point of view of the increasing distinctness of the“autonomy”of the processes. The system begins with the active regulatory functions of living matter in the chemistry of metabolism (see particularly the phenomena of immunisation), and ascends through different stages up to the regulations of regeneration. There could be no more impressive way of showing how little life and its“regulations”can be compared to the“self-regulations”of machines, or to the restoring of typical states of equilibrium and of form in the physical and chemical domain, to which the mechanists are fond of referring.The facts thus empirically brought together are then[pg 269]linked together in a theory, and considered epistemologically. We may leave out of account all that is included in the treatment of modern idealism, immanence-philosophy, and solipsism. All this does not arise directly out of the vitalistic ideas, though the latter are fitted into an idealistic framework. Extremely vivid is the excursus on respiration and assimilation. (All processes of building up and breaking down take place within the organism under conditions notoriously different from those obtaining in the laboratory. It is radically impossible to speak of a living“substance”according to the formula CxHyOz, which assimilates and disassimilates itself [sibi].) Excellent, too, are Driesch's remarks on materialistic elucidations of inheritance and morphogenesis. It is quite impossible to succeed with epigenetic speculations on a material basis (cf.Haacke). Weismann is so far right, he admits, from his materialistic premisses when he starts with preformations. But his theory, and all others of the kind, can do nothing more than make an infinitely small photograph of the difficulty. They“explain”the processes of form-development and the regeneration of animals and plants, by constructing infinitely small animals and plants, which develop their form and regenerate lost parts. And Driesch holds it to be impossible to distribute a complicated tectonic among the elements of an equipotential system. In denying the materialistic theory of development, Driesch again determinedly“traverses”[pg 270]his own earlier views. He does this, too, when he now rejects the reconciliation between causality and teleology as different modes of looking at things. The teleological now seems to him itself a factor playing a part in the chain of causes, and thus making it teleological. The key-word of all is to him the“entelechy”of Aristotle.In his last work on“The Soul,”Driesch follows the impossibilities of the mechanical theories from the domain of vital processes into that of behaviour and voluntary actions.The Views of Albrecht and Schneider.An outlook and interpretation which Driesch102maintained for a while, but afterwards abandoned, has been developed in an original and peculiar fashion by Eugen Albrecht, Prosector and Pathologist in Munich.103It is the theory of different ways of looking at things. Albrecht indeed firmly adheres to the chemical and physical interpretation of vital processes, regards[pg 271]approximate completeness along these lines as the ideal of science, and maintains their essential sufficiency. But he holds that the mechanists have been mistaken and one-sided in that they have upheld this interpretation and mode of considering things as the sole and the“true”one. According to our subjective attitude to things and their changes, they appear to us in quite different series of associations, each of which forms a complete series in itself, running parallel to the others, but not intruding to fill up gaps in them. Microscopic and macroscopic study of things illustrate such separate and complete series. The classical example for the whole theory is the psycho-physical parallelism. Psychical phenomena are not“explained”when the correlated line of material changes and the phenomena of the nervous system have been traced out. Similarly with the series of“vital”phenomena,“vital”interpretation from the point of view of the“living organism,”runs parallel to, but distinct from the chemical and physical analyses of vital processes. But each of these parallel ways of regarding things is“true.”For the current separation of the“appearance”and“nature”of things is false, since it assumes that only one of the possible ways of regarding things,e.g., the mechanical-causal mode of interpretation is essential, and that all the others deal only with associated appearance.The idea that only one or two of these series can represent the“true nature”of the phenomenon“can[pg 272]only be called cheap dogma.”Each series is complete in itself, and every successive phase follows directly and without a break from the antecedent one, which alone explains it. In this lies the relative justification of the ever-recurring reactions to“vitalism.”This theory of Albrecht's has all the charms and difficulties, or impossibilities, of parallelistic interpretations in general. Its validity might be discussed with reference to the particular case of psycho-physical parallelism.104To make a sound basis for itself it would require first to clear up the causality problem, and to answer, or at least definitely formulate the great question whether causing (Bewirkung) is to be replaced by mere necessary sequence—for this is where it ends. The conclusion which, with regard to biological methods and ideals, seems to make all concessions to the purely mechanical mode of interpretation, is not sufficiently obvious from the premisses. If the vital series be a“real”one, we should expect that a“vitalistic”mode of interpretation, with methods and aims of its own, would be required, just as a special science of psychology is required. The assumption that each series is complete without a break, and that an all-including analysis of vital processes in terms of mechanical processes must[pg 273]ultimately be possible, is apetitio principii, and breaks down before the objections raised by the vitalists. The most central problem in the whole matter, namely, the relation of the causal to the teleological, has not been touched. These two concepts would, of course, not yield“parallels,”but would be different points of view, which could eventually be applied to each series.K. Camillo Schneider,105Privatdozent in Vienna, uses the soul, the psychical in the true sense, as the explanation[pg 274]of the vital. What had been thought secretly and individually by some of the vitalists already mentioned, but had, so to speak, cropped up only as the incidentally revealed reverse side of their negations of mechanism, Schneider attempts definitely to formulate into a theory. The chief merit of his book on“Vitalism”is to be found, in Chapters II. to X., in his thorough discussion of the chemical, physical, and mechanical theories along the special lines of each.The list of critics might be added to, and the number of standpoints in opposition to mechanism greatly increased. This diversity of standpoint, and the individual way in which each independent thinker reacts from the mechanical theory shows that here, as also in regard to Darwin's theory of selection, we have to do with a dogmatic theory and a forced simplification of phenomena, not with an objective and calm consideration of things as they are. It is a theory wheresimplexhas becomesigillum falsi.How all this affects the Religious Outlook.These denials and destructive criticisms of the mechanical theory, which are now continually cropping up,[pg 275]lead, as must be obvious, towards a deeper conception and interpretation of reality in general, and towards a religious conception in particular. Unquestionably the most important fact in connection with them is the fresh revelation of the depth of things and of appearance, the increased recognition that our knowledge is only leading us towards mystery.It is indeed questionable whether anything more than this can be said in regard to the problem of life, whether we ought not to content ourselves with recognising the limits of our knowledge, and reject all positive statements that go beyond these limits. For the mechanists are undoubtedly right in this, that“entelechy,”“the idea of the whole,”“co-operation,”“guidance,”“psychical factors,”and the like, are only names for riddles, and do not in themselves constitute knowledge.106The case here is somewhat similar to what we have already seen in connection with“antinomies.”They, too, give us no positive insight into the true nature of things, but they at any rate prove to us that we have not yet understood what that is. And, just as they show us that our knowledge of the world as it appears to us can never be complete, so here it appears that we come upon inexplicabilities even within the domain accessible to our knowledge.[pg 276]Thus the religious conception of the world gains something here as from the antinomies, namely, a fresh proof that the world which appears to us and can be comprehended by us, proclaims its true nature and depths, but does not reveal them. Perhaps there is still another gain. For in any case the vital processes and the marvels of evolution and development are examples of the way in which physical processes are constantly subject to a peculiar guidance, which certainly cannot be explained from themselves or in terms of mechanism, organisation, and the like. All attempts to demonstrate this in detail, all“explanations”in terms of dynamic co-operation, of dominants, of ideas, or anything else, are vague, and seem to go to pieces when we try to take firm hold of them. But the fact remains none the less.May not this be a paradigm of the processes and development of the world at large, and even of evolution in the domain of history? Here, too, all ideas of guidance, of endeavour after an aim, &c., which philosophical study of history or religious intuition seems to find, make shipwreck against the fact that every attempt to demonstrate their nature, fails. All these theories of influx, concursus, and so on, whether transcendental or immanent factors be employed, immediately become wooden, and never admit of verification in detail. But precisely the same is true of the dominance of the“idea,”or of the“law[pg 277]of evolution,”or of the“potential of development”in every developing organism. Yet incomprehensible and undemonstrable in detail as this“dominance”is, and completely as it may be concealed behind the play of physical causes, it is there, none the less.
The Views of Botanists Illustrated.It might have been expected that in the domain of plant-biology, if anywhere, the mechanistic standpoint would have been the prevailing one. For it is almost a matter of course to regard plants as devoid of sensation or“psychical”life, and as mechanical systems, chemical laboratories, and reflex mechanisms, and this way of regarding them has been made easy by the very marked uniformity and lack of spontaneity in their vital processes as compared with those of animals. But it is not the case that mechanical theories have here prevailed. The opposition to them is just as great here as elsewhere, and from the days of Wigand onwards it has been almost continuously sustained.88Very characteristic is[pg 249]Pfeffer's“Pflanzen-Physiologie”(1897), which is written professedly from the mechanist point of view.“Vitalism,”according to this authority, is to be rejected, but instead of“vital force”he offers us“given properties,”and the alleged machine-like collocations of the most minute elements. In regard, for instance, to the riddle of development and morphogenesis, we must simply accept it as a“given property,”that the acorn grows in an oak and nothing else. The chemical explanation of the vital functions of protoplasm is also to be rejected; as a shattered watch is no longer a watch though it remains chemically the same, so it is with protoplasm. The available chemical knowledge of the substances of which protoplasm is made up is insufficient to render the vital processes intelligible. Here, as everywhere else, we have to reckon with ultimate“properties (entities), which we neither can, nor desire to analyse further.”“The human mind is no more capable of forming a conception of the ultimate cause of things than of eternity.”If all the views here indicated were followed out to their logical conclusions, they would hinder rather than further the process of reduction to terms of physico-chemical sequences.Kerner von Marilaun in his“Pflanzenleben”deliberately takes up a thorough-going vitalist position, and on this point as well as on many others he opposed the current theory of the school (Darwinism). It is true, he admits, that many of the phenomena in plants[pg 250]can be explained in purely mechanical terms, but they are only those which may occur also in non-living structures. The specific expressions of life cannot be explained in this way. He shows this more fully in regard to the most fundamental of all the vital processes in the plant-body—the breaking up of carbonic acid gas by the chlorophyll to obtain the carbon which is the fundamental element in all living organisms. We know the requisite conditions: the supply of raw material, and the sunlight from which the energy is derived. But how the chlorophyll makes use of these to effect the breaking up, and how it starts the subsequent syntheses of the carbon into the most complex organic compounds remains a mystery. And so on upwards through all the strictly vital phenomena.Wiesner's89view of things is essentially similar. He gives a very impressive picture of the mystery of the chemistry of the plant, showing how small is the number of food-stuffs and raw materials in comparison to the thousands of highly complex chemical substances which the plant produces, and how much work there is involved in de-oxydising the food and in forming syntheses. He, too, refuses, as usual, to postulate“vital force.”Yet to speak of“the fundamental peculiarities of the living matter inherent in the organism”and to admit that plants are“irritable,”“heliotropic,”“geotropic,”&c., amounts to much the same thing as postulating vital[pg 251]force; that is to say, to a mere naming of the specific problem of life without explaining it. The author himself admits this when he says in another place:“If I compare organisms with inorganic systems, I find that the progress of our knowledge is continually enlarging the gulf which separates the one from the other!”These anti-mechanical tendencies show themselves most emphatically in the work of Fr. Ludwig.90In his concluding chapter, after a discussion of the theories of Darwin, Nägeli, and Weismann, he postulates, for variation, heredity, and species-formation in particular,“forces other than physico-chemical,”“let us call them frankly psychical.”It is instructive to see how these“vitalistic”views crop up even in studies of detail and of the microscopically small, as for instance in E. Crato's“Beiträge zur Anatomie und Physiologie des Elementar-organismus.”How the living organism contains within itself what is in its turn living, down into ever smaller detail, (amœboid movements of certain plastines, physodes,) how incomparable the living organism is with a“machine,”to which its libellers are so fond of likening it, how it builds itself up, steers, and stokes itself, how it produces with“playful ease”the most marvellous and graceful forms, makes combinations and breaks them up, how analogous its whole activity is to“being able”and“willing,”all this is clearly brought out.91[pg 252]A very fresh and lucid presentation of the whole case is given by Borodin, Professor of Botany in St. Petersburg, in his essay,“Protoplasm and Vital Force.”92He sharply castigates the one-sidedness and impetuosity of the mechanical theory, as in Haeckel's discovery of Bathybius and of non-nucleated bacteria. The latter[pg 253]are problematical, and the former has been proved an illusion. To penetrate farther into the processes of life is simply to become aware of an ever-deepening series of riddles. There is no such thing as“protoplasm,”or“living proteid,”or indeed any unified, simple“living matter”whatever. Artificial“oil-emulsion amoebæ”93bear the same relation to living ones that Vaucanson's mechanical duck bears to a real one; that is, none at all. Our“protoplasm”is as mystical as the old“vital force,”and both are only camping-grounds for our ignorance. Neither the mechanical nor the atomic theory were the results of exact investigations; they were borrowed from philosophy. We do indeed investigate the typically vital process of irritability by physical methods. But the response made by the organism to physical coercion may be called a mockery of physics. The mechanists help themselves out with crude analogies from the mechanical, conceal the problem with the name“irritability,”and thus get rid of the greatest marvels. If vital force itself were to call out from its cells,“Here I am,”they would probably see in it only a remarkable case of“irritability.”Mechanism is no more positive knowledge than vitalism is; it is only the dogmatic faith of the majority of present-day naturalists.
It might have been expected that in the domain of plant-biology, if anywhere, the mechanistic standpoint would have been the prevailing one. For it is almost a matter of course to regard plants as devoid of sensation or“psychical”life, and as mechanical systems, chemical laboratories, and reflex mechanisms, and this way of regarding them has been made easy by the very marked uniformity and lack of spontaneity in their vital processes as compared with those of animals. But it is not the case that mechanical theories have here prevailed. The opposition to them is just as great here as elsewhere, and from the days of Wigand onwards it has been almost continuously sustained.88Very characteristic is[pg 249]Pfeffer's“Pflanzen-Physiologie”(1897), which is written professedly from the mechanist point of view.“Vitalism,”according to this authority, is to be rejected, but instead of“vital force”he offers us“given properties,”and the alleged machine-like collocations of the most minute elements. In regard, for instance, to the riddle of development and morphogenesis, we must simply accept it as a“given property,”that the acorn grows in an oak and nothing else. The chemical explanation of the vital functions of protoplasm is also to be rejected; as a shattered watch is no longer a watch though it remains chemically the same, so it is with protoplasm. The available chemical knowledge of the substances of which protoplasm is made up is insufficient to render the vital processes intelligible. Here, as everywhere else, we have to reckon with ultimate“properties (entities), which we neither can, nor desire to analyse further.”“The human mind is no more capable of forming a conception of the ultimate cause of things than of eternity.”If all the views here indicated were followed out to their logical conclusions, they would hinder rather than further the process of reduction to terms of physico-chemical sequences.
Kerner von Marilaun in his“Pflanzenleben”deliberately takes up a thorough-going vitalist position, and on this point as well as on many others he opposed the current theory of the school (Darwinism). It is true, he admits, that many of the phenomena in plants[pg 250]can be explained in purely mechanical terms, but they are only those which may occur also in non-living structures. The specific expressions of life cannot be explained in this way. He shows this more fully in regard to the most fundamental of all the vital processes in the plant-body—the breaking up of carbonic acid gas by the chlorophyll to obtain the carbon which is the fundamental element in all living organisms. We know the requisite conditions: the supply of raw material, and the sunlight from which the energy is derived. But how the chlorophyll makes use of these to effect the breaking up, and how it starts the subsequent syntheses of the carbon into the most complex organic compounds remains a mystery. And so on upwards through all the strictly vital phenomena.
Wiesner's89view of things is essentially similar. He gives a very impressive picture of the mystery of the chemistry of the plant, showing how small is the number of food-stuffs and raw materials in comparison to the thousands of highly complex chemical substances which the plant produces, and how much work there is involved in de-oxydising the food and in forming syntheses. He, too, refuses, as usual, to postulate“vital force.”Yet to speak of“the fundamental peculiarities of the living matter inherent in the organism”and to admit that plants are“irritable,”“heliotropic,”“geotropic,”&c., amounts to much the same thing as postulating vital[pg 251]force; that is to say, to a mere naming of the specific problem of life without explaining it. The author himself admits this when he says in another place:“If I compare organisms with inorganic systems, I find that the progress of our knowledge is continually enlarging the gulf which separates the one from the other!”
These anti-mechanical tendencies show themselves most emphatically in the work of Fr. Ludwig.90In his concluding chapter, after a discussion of the theories of Darwin, Nägeli, and Weismann, he postulates, for variation, heredity, and species-formation in particular,“forces other than physico-chemical,”“let us call them frankly psychical.”
It is instructive to see how these“vitalistic”views crop up even in studies of detail and of the microscopically small, as for instance in E. Crato's“Beiträge zur Anatomie und Physiologie des Elementar-organismus.”How the living organism contains within itself what is in its turn living, down into ever smaller detail, (amœboid movements of certain plastines, physodes,) how incomparable the living organism is with a“machine,”to which its libellers are so fond of likening it, how it builds itself up, steers, and stokes itself, how it produces with“playful ease”the most marvellous and graceful forms, makes combinations and breaks them up, how analogous its whole activity is to“being able”and“willing,”all this is clearly brought out.91
A very fresh and lucid presentation of the whole case is given by Borodin, Professor of Botany in St. Petersburg, in his essay,“Protoplasm and Vital Force.”92He sharply castigates the one-sidedness and impetuosity of the mechanical theory, as in Haeckel's discovery of Bathybius and of non-nucleated bacteria. The latter[pg 253]are problematical, and the former has been proved an illusion. To penetrate farther into the processes of life is simply to become aware of an ever-deepening series of riddles. There is no such thing as“protoplasm,”or“living proteid,”or indeed any unified, simple“living matter”whatever. Artificial“oil-emulsion amoebæ”93bear the same relation to living ones that Vaucanson's mechanical duck bears to a real one; that is, none at all. Our“protoplasm”is as mystical as the old“vital force,”and both are only camping-grounds for our ignorance. Neither the mechanical nor the atomic theory were the results of exact investigations; they were borrowed from philosophy. We do indeed investigate the typically vital process of irritability by physical methods. But the response made by the organism to physical coercion may be called a mockery of physics. The mechanists help themselves out with crude analogies from the mechanical, conceal the problem with the name“irritability,”and thus get rid of the greatest marvels. If vital force itself were to call out from its cells,“Here I am,”they would probably see in it only a remarkable case of“irritability.”Mechanism is no more positive knowledge than vitalism is; it is only the dogmatic faith of the majority of present-day naturalists.
Constructive Criticism.Those whose protests we have hitherto been considering have not added to their criticism of the[pg 254]mechanical theory any positive contribution of their own, or at least they give nothing more than very slight hints pointing towards a psychical theory. But there are others who have sought to overcome the mechanical theory by gaining a deeper grasp of the nature of“force”in general. Their attempts have been of various kinds, but usually tend in one direction, which can perhaps be most precisely and briefly indicated through Lloyd Morgan's views, as summed up, for instance, in his essay on“Vitalism.”94In the beginning of biological text-books, we usually find (he says) a chapter on the nature of“force,”but it is“like grace before meat”—without influence on quality or digestion. Yet this problem must be cleared up before we can arrive at any understanding of the whole subject. In all attempts at“reducing to simpler terms,”it must be borne in mind that“force”reveals its nature in ever higher stages, of which every one is new. Even cohesion cannot be reduced to terms of gravitation, nor the chemical affinities and molecular forces to something more primitive. They are already something“outside the recognised order of nature.”In a still higher form force is expressed in the processes of crystallisation. At the formation of the first crystal there came into action a directing force of the same kind as the will of the sculptor at the making of the Venus of Melos. This new element, which intervenes every time, Lloyd Morgan regards, with Herbert[pg 255]Spencer (“Principles of Biology”), as“due to that ultimate reality which underlies this manifestation, as it underlies all other manifestations.”There can be no“understanding”in the sense of“getting behind things”: even the actions of“brute matter”cannot be“understood.”The play of chance not only does not explain the living; it does not even explain the not-living. But life in particular can neither be brought into the cell from without, nor be explained as simply“emerging from the co-operation of the components of the protoplasm,”and it is“in its essence not to be conceived in physico-chemical terms,”but represents“new modes of activity in the noumenal cause,”which, just because it is noumenal, is beyond our grasp. For only phenomena are“accessible to thought.”Among the biologists who concern themselves with deeper considerations, Oscar Hertwig,95the Director of the Anatomical Institute at Berlin, has expressed ideas similar to those we have been discussing, little as this may seem to be the case at first sight. He desires to oust the ordinary mechanism, so to speak, by replacing it by a mechanism of a higher order, and in making the attempt he examines and deepens the traditional ideas of causality and“force,”and defines the right and wrong of the quantitative-mathematical interpretation of nature in general, and of mechanics in particular. He[pg 256]follows confessedly in Lotze's path, not so much in regard to that thinker's insistence upon the association of the causal and the teleological modes of interpretation, as in modifying the idea of causality. O. Hertwig puts forward his own theories with special reference to those of W. Roux, the founder of the new“Science of the Future”—the mechanical, and therefore only scientific theory of development, which no longer only describes, but understands and causally explains phenomena (“Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik”). There are two kinds of mechanism (Hertwig says): that in the higher philosophical sense, and that in the purely physical sense. The former declares that all phenomena are connected by a guiding thread of causal connection and can be causally explained. As such, its application to the domain of vital phenomena is justifiable and self-evident. But it is not justifiable if cause be simply made identical with and limited to“force,”if the causal connection be only admitted in the technical sense of the transference and transformation of energy, and if, over and above, it is supposed to give an“explanation,”in the sense of an insight into things themselves. Even mechanics is (as Kirchoff maintained) a“descriptive”science. Hertwig agrees with Schopenhauer and Lotze in regarding every primitive natural“force”as unique, not reducible to simpler terms, but qualitatively distinct,—a“qualitas occulta,”capable not of physical but only of metaphysical explanation. And thus his conclusions imply rejection of mechanism in the cruder[pg 257]sense. As such, it has only a very limited sphere of action in the realm of the living. The history of mechanical interpretations is a history of their collapse. The attempt to derive the organic from the inorganic has often been made. But no such attempts have held the field for long. We can now say with some reason that“the gulf between the two kingdoms of nature has become deeper just in proportion as our physical and chemical, our morphological and physiological knowledge of the organism has deepened.”Mach's expression“mechanical mythology,”is quoted, and then a fine passage on the insufficiency of the mathematical view of things in general concludes thus:“Mathematics is only a method of thought, an excellent tool of the human mind, but it is very far from being the case that all thought and knowledge moves in this one direction, and that the content of our minds can ever find exhaustive expression through it alone.”In his“Theory of Dominants,”96Reinke, the botanist of Kiel, has attempted to formulate his opposition to the physico-chemical conception of life into a vitalistic theory of his own. Among biologists who confess themselves supporters of the mechanical theory, there are some who expressly reject explanations in terms of[pg 258]chemical and physical principles, and emphasise, more energetically than others, that these can only give rise to vital phenomena and complex processes of movement, on the basis of a most delicately differentiated structure and architecture of the living substance in its minute details, and from the egg onwards. They have created the strict“machine theory,”and they may be grouped together as the“tectonists.”“A watch that has been stamped to pieces is no longer a watch.”Thus the merely material and chemical is not the essential part of the living; it is the tectonic, the machinery of structure that is essential. The fundamental idea in this position is precisely that of Lotze. It is not a“mystical,”vital principle, that sets up, controls, and regulates the physical and chemical processes within the developed or developing organism. They receive their direction and impulse through the fact that they are associated with a given peculiar mechanical structure. This theory certainly contains all the monstrosities of preformation in the germ, the mythologies of the infinitely small, and it suffers shipwreck in ways as diverse as the number of its sides and parts. But it has the merit of clearly disclosing the impossibilities of purely chemical explanations. Reinke's“Theory of Dominants”started from such tectonic conceptions, and so originally did Driesch's Neovitalism, of which we shall presently have to speak.Reinke's theory has gone through several stages of[pg 259]development. At first its general tenor was as follows: Every living thing is typically different from everything that is not living. What explains this difference? Certainly not the hypothesis of vital force, which is far from being clear. The idea that forces of a psychic nature are inherent in the organism is also rejected. The illustration of a watch helps us to understand. The impelling force in it is certainly not merely the ordinary force of gravity or the general elasticity of steel. The efficacy of simple forces such as these can be increased in infinite diversity by the“construction of the apparatus”in which they operate. Life is the function of a quite unique, marvellously complex, inimitable combination of machines. If these be given, the most complex processes fulfil themselves of necessity and without the intervention of special vital forces. But how can they be“given”? The sole analogy to be found is the making of real machines, artificial products as distinguished from fortuitous products. They cannot be made without the influence and activity of intelligence. To explain the incomparably more ingenious and complex vital machine as due to a fortuitous origin and collocation of its individual parts would be more absurd than it would be to think of a watch being made in this way. The dominance of a creative idea cannot but be recognised. An intelligent natural force which is conscious of its aims and calculates its means must be presupposed, if we are really to[pg 260]satisfy our sense of causality. It is a matter of personal conviction whether we find this force in“God”or in the“Absolute.”These views are more fully developed in the theory of dominants expounded in Reinke's later work,“Die Welt as Tat”(after what has been said the meaning of the title will be self-evident), and in his“Theoretische Biologie.”97Very vigorous and convincing are the author's objections to the naturalistic theories of organic life, especially to the“self-origin”of the living, or spontaneous generation. In all vital processes we must reckon with a“physiologicalx,”which cannot be eliminated, which gives to life its unique and underivable character. There are“secondary forces,”“superforces,”“dominants,”which bring about what is peculiar in vital functions and direct their processes.“Vitalism”in the strict sense is thus here also rejected. The machine-theory is held valid. There are“dominants”even in our tools and utensils, in our hammer and spoon, and the“operation”of these cannot be explained merely physico-chemically, but through the dominants of the form, structure and composition, with which they have been invested by intelligence. The association with the views of the tectonists is so far quite apparent. But the idea of“dominants”soon broadens out. We find dominants of form-development,[pg 261]of evolution, and so on. What were at first only peculiarities of structure and architecture have grown almost unawares into dynamic principles of form which have nothing more to do with the mechanical theory, and which, because of their dualistic nature, result in conclusions and modes of explanation which can hardly be called very useful. The lines along which the idea has developed are intelligible enough. It started originally from that of the organism as a finished product, functioning actively, especially in its metabolism. Here the comparison with a steam engine with self-regulators and automatic whistles is admissible, and one may speak of dominants in the sense of mechanical dominants. But the idea thus started was pressed into general service. And thus arose dominants of development, of morphogenesis, even of phylogenetic evolution (“phylogenetic evolution-potential”). New dominants are added, and the theory advances farther and farther from the“machine theory,”becomes ever more enigmatical, and more vitalistic.
Those whose protests we have hitherto been considering have not added to their criticism of the[pg 254]mechanical theory any positive contribution of their own, or at least they give nothing more than very slight hints pointing towards a psychical theory. But there are others who have sought to overcome the mechanical theory by gaining a deeper grasp of the nature of“force”in general. Their attempts have been of various kinds, but usually tend in one direction, which can perhaps be most precisely and briefly indicated through Lloyd Morgan's views, as summed up, for instance, in his essay on“Vitalism.”94In the beginning of biological text-books, we usually find (he says) a chapter on the nature of“force,”but it is“like grace before meat”—without influence on quality or digestion. Yet this problem must be cleared up before we can arrive at any understanding of the whole subject. In all attempts at“reducing to simpler terms,”it must be borne in mind that“force”reveals its nature in ever higher stages, of which every one is new. Even cohesion cannot be reduced to terms of gravitation, nor the chemical affinities and molecular forces to something more primitive. They are already something“outside the recognised order of nature.”In a still higher form force is expressed in the processes of crystallisation. At the formation of the first crystal there came into action a directing force of the same kind as the will of the sculptor at the making of the Venus of Melos. This new element, which intervenes every time, Lloyd Morgan regards, with Herbert[pg 255]Spencer (“Principles of Biology”), as“due to that ultimate reality which underlies this manifestation, as it underlies all other manifestations.”There can be no“understanding”in the sense of“getting behind things”: even the actions of“brute matter”cannot be“understood.”The play of chance not only does not explain the living; it does not even explain the not-living. But life in particular can neither be brought into the cell from without, nor be explained as simply“emerging from the co-operation of the components of the protoplasm,”and it is“in its essence not to be conceived in physico-chemical terms,”but represents“new modes of activity in the noumenal cause,”which, just because it is noumenal, is beyond our grasp. For only phenomena are“accessible to thought.”
Among the biologists who concern themselves with deeper considerations, Oscar Hertwig,95the Director of the Anatomical Institute at Berlin, has expressed ideas similar to those we have been discussing, little as this may seem to be the case at first sight. He desires to oust the ordinary mechanism, so to speak, by replacing it by a mechanism of a higher order, and in making the attempt he examines and deepens the traditional ideas of causality and“force,”and defines the right and wrong of the quantitative-mathematical interpretation of nature in general, and of mechanics in particular. He[pg 256]follows confessedly in Lotze's path, not so much in regard to that thinker's insistence upon the association of the causal and the teleological modes of interpretation, as in modifying the idea of causality. O. Hertwig puts forward his own theories with special reference to those of W. Roux, the founder of the new“Science of the Future”—the mechanical, and therefore only scientific theory of development, which no longer only describes, but understands and causally explains phenomena (“Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik”). There are two kinds of mechanism (Hertwig says): that in the higher philosophical sense, and that in the purely physical sense. The former declares that all phenomena are connected by a guiding thread of causal connection and can be causally explained. As such, its application to the domain of vital phenomena is justifiable and self-evident. But it is not justifiable if cause be simply made identical with and limited to“force,”if the causal connection be only admitted in the technical sense of the transference and transformation of energy, and if, over and above, it is supposed to give an“explanation,”in the sense of an insight into things themselves. Even mechanics is (as Kirchoff maintained) a“descriptive”science. Hertwig agrees with Schopenhauer and Lotze in regarding every primitive natural“force”as unique, not reducible to simpler terms, but qualitatively distinct,—a“qualitas occulta,”capable not of physical but only of metaphysical explanation. And thus his conclusions imply rejection of mechanism in the cruder[pg 257]sense. As such, it has only a very limited sphere of action in the realm of the living. The history of mechanical interpretations is a history of their collapse. The attempt to derive the organic from the inorganic has often been made. But no such attempts have held the field for long. We can now say with some reason that“the gulf between the two kingdoms of nature has become deeper just in proportion as our physical and chemical, our morphological and physiological knowledge of the organism has deepened.”Mach's expression“mechanical mythology,”is quoted, and then a fine passage on the insufficiency of the mathematical view of things in general concludes thus:“Mathematics is only a method of thought, an excellent tool of the human mind, but it is very far from being the case that all thought and knowledge moves in this one direction, and that the content of our minds can ever find exhaustive expression through it alone.”
In his“Theory of Dominants,”96Reinke, the botanist of Kiel, has attempted to formulate his opposition to the physico-chemical conception of life into a vitalistic theory of his own. Among biologists who confess themselves supporters of the mechanical theory, there are some who expressly reject explanations in terms of[pg 258]chemical and physical principles, and emphasise, more energetically than others, that these can only give rise to vital phenomena and complex processes of movement, on the basis of a most delicately differentiated structure and architecture of the living substance in its minute details, and from the egg onwards. They have created the strict“machine theory,”and they may be grouped together as the“tectonists.”“A watch that has been stamped to pieces is no longer a watch.”Thus the merely material and chemical is not the essential part of the living; it is the tectonic, the machinery of structure that is essential. The fundamental idea in this position is precisely that of Lotze. It is not a“mystical,”vital principle, that sets up, controls, and regulates the physical and chemical processes within the developed or developing organism. They receive their direction and impulse through the fact that they are associated with a given peculiar mechanical structure. This theory certainly contains all the monstrosities of preformation in the germ, the mythologies of the infinitely small, and it suffers shipwreck in ways as diverse as the number of its sides and parts. But it has the merit of clearly disclosing the impossibilities of purely chemical explanations. Reinke's“Theory of Dominants”started from such tectonic conceptions, and so originally did Driesch's Neovitalism, of which we shall presently have to speak.
Reinke's theory has gone through several stages of[pg 259]development. At first its general tenor was as follows: Every living thing is typically different from everything that is not living. What explains this difference? Certainly not the hypothesis of vital force, which is far from being clear. The idea that forces of a psychic nature are inherent in the organism is also rejected. The illustration of a watch helps us to understand. The impelling force in it is certainly not merely the ordinary force of gravity or the general elasticity of steel. The efficacy of simple forces such as these can be increased in infinite diversity by the“construction of the apparatus”in which they operate. Life is the function of a quite unique, marvellously complex, inimitable combination of machines. If these be given, the most complex processes fulfil themselves of necessity and without the intervention of special vital forces. But how can they be“given”? The sole analogy to be found is the making of real machines, artificial products as distinguished from fortuitous products. They cannot be made without the influence and activity of intelligence. To explain the incomparably more ingenious and complex vital machine as due to a fortuitous origin and collocation of its individual parts would be more absurd than it would be to think of a watch being made in this way. The dominance of a creative idea cannot but be recognised. An intelligent natural force which is conscious of its aims and calculates its means must be presupposed, if we are really to[pg 260]satisfy our sense of causality. It is a matter of personal conviction whether we find this force in“God”or in the“Absolute.”
These views are more fully developed in the theory of dominants expounded in Reinke's later work,“Die Welt as Tat”(after what has been said the meaning of the title will be self-evident), and in his“Theoretische Biologie.”97Very vigorous and convincing are the author's objections to the naturalistic theories of organic life, especially to the“self-origin”of the living, or spontaneous generation. In all vital processes we must reckon with a“physiologicalx,”which cannot be eliminated, which gives to life its unique and underivable character. There are“secondary forces,”“superforces,”“dominants,”which bring about what is peculiar in vital functions and direct their processes.“Vitalism”in the strict sense is thus here also rejected. The machine-theory is held valid. There are“dominants”even in our tools and utensils, in our hammer and spoon, and the“operation”of these cannot be explained merely physico-chemically, but through the dominants of the form, structure and composition, with which they have been invested by intelligence. The association with the views of the tectonists is so far quite apparent. But the idea of“dominants”soon broadens out. We find dominants of form-development,[pg 261]of evolution, and so on. What were at first only peculiarities of structure and architecture have grown almost unawares into dynamic principles of form which have nothing more to do with the mechanical theory, and which, because of their dualistic nature, result in conclusions and modes of explanation which can hardly be called very useful. The lines along which the idea has developed are intelligible enough. It started originally from that of the organism as a finished product, functioning actively, especially in its metabolism. Here the comparison with a steam engine with self-regulators and automatic whistles is admissible, and one may speak of dominants in the sense of mechanical dominants. But the idea thus started was pressed into general service. And thus arose dominants of development, of morphogenesis, even of phylogenetic evolution (“phylogenetic evolution-potential”). New dominants are added, and the theory advances farther and farther from the“machine theory,”becomes ever more enigmatical, and more vitalistic.
The Constructive Work of Driesch.What in Reinke's case came about almost unperceived, Driesch did with full consciousness and intention, following the necessity laid upon him by his own gradual personal development and by his consistent, tenacious prosecution of the problem. The acuteness of his thinking, the concentration of his endeavours[pg 262]through long years, his comprehensive knowledge and mastery of the material, the deep logicalness and consistent evolution of his“standpoints,”and his philosophical and theoretical grasp of the subject make him probably the most instructive type, indeed, we may almost say, the very incarnation of the whole disputed question. In 1891 he published his“Mathematisch—mechanische Betrachtung morphologischer Probleme der Biologie,”the work in which he first touched the depths of the problem. It is directed chiefly against the merely“historical”methods in biology, used by the current schools in the form of Darwinism. Darwinism and the Theory of Descent have been so far nothing more than“galleries of ancestors,”and the science ranged under their banner is only descriptive, not explanatory. Instead of setting up contingent theories we must form a“conception”of the internal necessity, inherent in the substratum itself, in accordance with which the forms of life have found expression—a necessity corresponding to that which conditions the form-development of the crystal.Experimental investigations and discoveries, and further reflection, resulted, in 1892, in his“Entwicklungsmechanische Studien,”and led him to insist on the need for what the title of his next year's work calls“Biologie als selbständige Grundwissenschaft.”In this work two important points are emphasised. The first is, that biology must certainly strive after precision,[pg 263]but that this precision consists not in subordination to, but in co-ordination with physics. Biology must rank side by side with physics as an“independent fundamental science,”and that in the form of tectonic. And the second point is, that the teleological point of view must take its place beside the causal. Only by recognising both can biology become a complete science.In the“Analytische Theorie der organischen Entwicklung”(1894) Driesch picks up the thread where he dropped it in the book before, and spins it farther,“traversing”his previous theoretical and experimental results. In this work the author still strives to remain within the frame of the tectonic and machine-theory, but the edges are already showing signs of giving way. Life, he says, is a mechanism based upon a given structure (it is however a machine which is constantly modifying and developing itself). Ontogenesis98is a strictly causal nexus, but following“a natural law the workings of which are entirely enigmatical”(with Wigand). Causality fulfils itself through“liberations,”that is to say, cause and effect are not quantitatively equivalent; and all effect is, notwithstanding its causal conditioning, something absolutely new and not to be calculated from the cause, so that there can be no question[pg 264]of mechanism in the strict sense. And the whole is directed by purpose.99The vital processes compel us to admit that it seems“as if intelligence determined quality and order.”Driesch still tries to reconcile causes and purposes as different“modes of regarding things,”but this device he afterwards abandons. We cannot penetrate to the nature of things either by the causal or by the teleological method. But they are—as Kant maintained—two modes of looking at things, both of which are postulates of our capacity for knowing. Each must stand by itself, and neither can have its sequence disturbed by the interpolation of pieces from the other. In the domain of the causal there can be no teleological explanation, and conversely; one might as well seek for an optical explanation of the synthesis of water; but both are true in their own place. The Madonna della Sedia, looked at microscopically, is a mass of blots, looked at macroscopically it is a picture. And it“is”both of these.Driesch's conclusions continue to advance, led steadily onwards by his experimental studies. In the“Maschinentheorie des Lebens,”100he attacks his own earlier theories with praiseworthy determination, and remorselessly pursues them to the monstrous conclusions to which they lead, and shows that they necessarily perish[pg 265]because of these. He had previously declared, at first emphatically, later with hesitation (we have already seen why), that every single vital process is of a physico-chemical kind, on the basis of a given“structure”of living beings. But now he considers the living organism as itself a result of vital processes—that is, of development. If this also is to be explained mechanically (as physico-chemical processes based on material structure), then the ovum must possessin parvothis infinitely fine structure, by virtue of which it fulfils its own physiological processes of maintenance, and also becomes the efficient cause of the subsequent development. It must bear the type of the individual and of the species, as a rudiment (or primordium) within its own structure. Every specific type must, however, according to the theory of descent, be derived through an endless process of evolution, by gradual stages, from some primitive organism. Just as in the mechanical becoming of the individual organism, so the primitive protovum must also be extraordinarily intricate and complex in its organisation if it is to give rise to all the processes of evolution and development involved in the succeeding ontogenies, phylogenies, regenerations, and so forth. This is a necessary conclusion if the machine-theory be correct, and if we refuse to admit that vital phenomena are governed by specific laws. This consequence is monstrous, and the theory of the tectonists therefore false. But if it be false, what then?[pg 266]Driesch answers this question in the books published in subsequent years.101In these he attains his final standpoint, and makes it more and more secure. The“machine-theory,”and all others like it, are now definitely abandoned. They represent the uncritical dogmatism of a materialistic mode of thought, which binds all phenomena to substance, and refuses to admit any immaterial or dynamic phenomena. The alleged initial structure is nowhere to be found. The pursuit of things into the most minute details leads to no indication of it. The chromatin, in which the most important vital processes have their basis, is very far from having this machine-like structure; it is homogeneous. The formation of the skeleton, for instance, of a Plubeus larva is due to migratory spontaneously moving cells (comparable to the leucocytes of our own body, whose migrations and activities remind one much more of a social organism than of a machine). The organism arises, not from mechanical, but from“harmoniously-equipotential systems”: that is to say, from systems every element of which has equal functional efficiency; so that each individual part bears within itself in an equal degree the potentiality of the whole—an impossibility from the mechanical point of view.[pg 267]Driesch had given an experimental basis for this theory at an earlier stage, in his experiments on the initial stages of the development of sea-urchins, starfishes, zoophytes, and the like. A Planarian worm cut into pieces developed a new worm of smaller size from each part. A mutilated Pluteus larva developed a new food-canal, and restored the whole typical form. His experiment of 1892 went farther still, for he succeeded in separating the first four segmentation-cells of the sea-urchin's egg; and from each cell obtained a developing embryo. These facts, he maintains, compel us to assume a mode of occurrence which is dynamicallysui generis, a“prospective tendency”which is a sub-concept in the Aristotelian“Dynamis.”And the essential difference between this kind of operation and a mechanical operation is, that the same typical effect is always reached, even if the whole normal causal nexus be disturbed. Even when forced into circuitous paths the embryo advances towards the same goal. Thus“vitalism,”that is, the independence and autonomy of the vital processes, is proved. The effect required is attained through“action at a distance,”a mode of happening which is specifically different from anything to be found in the inorganic world, and which has itsdirective, for instance, in the regeneration of lost parts,[pg 268]notin anything corporeal or substantial, but in the end to be attained.In his work on“Organic Regulations,”Driesch collects from the most diverse biological fields more and more astonishing proofs of the activity of the living as contrasted with physico-chemical phenomena, and of the marvellous power the organism has to“help itself”and to attain the typical form and reach the end aimed at, even under the greatest diversity in the chain of conditions. The material here brought forward is enormous, and the author's grasp of it very remarkable; and not the least of the merits of the book is, that the bewildering wealth and diversity of these phenomena, which are usually presented to us as isolated and uncoordinated instances, is here definitely systematised according to their characteristic peculiarities, and from the point of view of the increasing distinctness of the“autonomy”of the processes. The system begins with the active regulatory functions of living matter in the chemistry of metabolism (see particularly the phenomena of immunisation), and ascends through different stages up to the regulations of regeneration. There could be no more impressive way of showing how little life and its“regulations”can be compared to the“self-regulations”of machines, or to the restoring of typical states of equilibrium and of form in the physical and chemical domain, to which the mechanists are fond of referring.The facts thus empirically brought together are then[pg 269]linked together in a theory, and considered epistemologically. We may leave out of account all that is included in the treatment of modern idealism, immanence-philosophy, and solipsism. All this does not arise directly out of the vitalistic ideas, though the latter are fitted into an idealistic framework. Extremely vivid is the excursus on respiration and assimilation. (All processes of building up and breaking down take place within the organism under conditions notoriously different from those obtaining in the laboratory. It is radically impossible to speak of a living“substance”according to the formula CxHyOz, which assimilates and disassimilates itself [sibi].) Excellent, too, are Driesch's remarks on materialistic elucidations of inheritance and morphogenesis. It is quite impossible to succeed with epigenetic speculations on a material basis (cf.Haacke). Weismann is so far right, he admits, from his materialistic premisses when he starts with preformations. But his theory, and all others of the kind, can do nothing more than make an infinitely small photograph of the difficulty. They“explain”the processes of form-development and the regeneration of animals and plants, by constructing infinitely small animals and plants, which develop their form and regenerate lost parts. And Driesch holds it to be impossible to distribute a complicated tectonic among the elements of an equipotential system. In denying the materialistic theory of development, Driesch again determinedly“traverses”[pg 270]his own earlier views. He does this, too, when he now rejects the reconciliation between causality and teleology as different modes of looking at things. The teleological now seems to him itself a factor playing a part in the chain of causes, and thus making it teleological. The key-word of all is to him the“entelechy”of Aristotle.In his last work on“The Soul,”Driesch follows the impossibilities of the mechanical theories from the domain of vital processes into that of behaviour and voluntary actions.
What in Reinke's case came about almost unperceived, Driesch did with full consciousness and intention, following the necessity laid upon him by his own gradual personal development and by his consistent, tenacious prosecution of the problem. The acuteness of his thinking, the concentration of his endeavours[pg 262]through long years, his comprehensive knowledge and mastery of the material, the deep logicalness and consistent evolution of his“standpoints,”and his philosophical and theoretical grasp of the subject make him probably the most instructive type, indeed, we may almost say, the very incarnation of the whole disputed question. In 1891 he published his“Mathematisch—mechanische Betrachtung morphologischer Probleme der Biologie,”the work in which he first touched the depths of the problem. It is directed chiefly against the merely“historical”methods in biology, used by the current schools in the form of Darwinism. Darwinism and the Theory of Descent have been so far nothing more than“galleries of ancestors,”and the science ranged under their banner is only descriptive, not explanatory. Instead of setting up contingent theories we must form a“conception”of the internal necessity, inherent in the substratum itself, in accordance with which the forms of life have found expression—a necessity corresponding to that which conditions the form-development of the crystal.
Experimental investigations and discoveries, and further reflection, resulted, in 1892, in his“Entwicklungsmechanische Studien,”and led him to insist on the need for what the title of his next year's work calls“Biologie als selbständige Grundwissenschaft.”In this work two important points are emphasised. The first is, that biology must certainly strive after precision,[pg 263]but that this precision consists not in subordination to, but in co-ordination with physics. Biology must rank side by side with physics as an“independent fundamental science,”and that in the form of tectonic. And the second point is, that the teleological point of view must take its place beside the causal. Only by recognising both can biology become a complete science.
In the“Analytische Theorie der organischen Entwicklung”(1894) Driesch picks up the thread where he dropped it in the book before, and spins it farther,“traversing”his previous theoretical and experimental results. In this work the author still strives to remain within the frame of the tectonic and machine-theory, but the edges are already showing signs of giving way. Life, he says, is a mechanism based upon a given structure (it is however a machine which is constantly modifying and developing itself). Ontogenesis98is a strictly causal nexus, but following“a natural law the workings of which are entirely enigmatical”(with Wigand). Causality fulfils itself through“liberations,”that is to say, cause and effect are not quantitatively equivalent; and all effect is, notwithstanding its causal conditioning, something absolutely new and not to be calculated from the cause, so that there can be no question[pg 264]of mechanism in the strict sense. And the whole is directed by purpose.99The vital processes compel us to admit that it seems“as if intelligence determined quality and order.”Driesch still tries to reconcile causes and purposes as different“modes of regarding things,”but this device he afterwards abandons. We cannot penetrate to the nature of things either by the causal or by the teleological method. But they are—as Kant maintained—two modes of looking at things, both of which are postulates of our capacity for knowing. Each must stand by itself, and neither can have its sequence disturbed by the interpolation of pieces from the other. In the domain of the causal there can be no teleological explanation, and conversely; one might as well seek for an optical explanation of the synthesis of water; but both are true in their own place. The Madonna della Sedia, looked at microscopically, is a mass of blots, looked at macroscopically it is a picture. And it“is”both of these.
Driesch's conclusions continue to advance, led steadily onwards by his experimental studies. In the“Maschinentheorie des Lebens,”100he attacks his own earlier theories with praiseworthy determination, and remorselessly pursues them to the monstrous conclusions to which they lead, and shows that they necessarily perish[pg 265]because of these. He had previously declared, at first emphatically, later with hesitation (we have already seen why), that every single vital process is of a physico-chemical kind, on the basis of a given“structure”of living beings. But now he considers the living organism as itself a result of vital processes—that is, of development. If this also is to be explained mechanically (as physico-chemical processes based on material structure), then the ovum must possessin parvothis infinitely fine structure, by virtue of which it fulfils its own physiological processes of maintenance, and also becomes the efficient cause of the subsequent development. It must bear the type of the individual and of the species, as a rudiment (or primordium) within its own structure. Every specific type must, however, according to the theory of descent, be derived through an endless process of evolution, by gradual stages, from some primitive organism. Just as in the mechanical becoming of the individual organism, so the primitive protovum must also be extraordinarily intricate and complex in its organisation if it is to give rise to all the processes of evolution and development involved in the succeeding ontogenies, phylogenies, regenerations, and so forth. This is a necessary conclusion if the machine-theory be correct, and if we refuse to admit that vital phenomena are governed by specific laws. This consequence is monstrous, and the theory of the tectonists therefore false. But if it be false, what then?
Driesch answers this question in the books published in subsequent years.101In these he attains his final standpoint, and makes it more and more secure. The“machine-theory,”and all others like it, are now definitely abandoned. They represent the uncritical dogmatism of a materialistic mode of thought, which binds all phenomena to substance, and refuses to admit any immaterial or dynamic phenomena. The alleged initial structure is nowhere to be found. The pursuit of things into the most minute details leads to no indication of it. The chromatin, in which the most important vital processes have their basis, is very far from having this machine-like structure; it is homogeneous. The formation of the skeleton, for instance, of a Plubeus larva is due to migratory spontaneously moving cells (comparable to the leucocytes of our own body, whose migrations and activities remind one much more of a social organism than of a machine). The organism arises, not from mechanical, but from“harmoniously-equipotential systems”: that is to say, from systems every element of which has equal functional efficiency; so that each individual part bears within itself in an equal degree the potentiality of the whole—an impossibility from the mechanical point of view.
Driesch had given an experimental basis for this theory at an earlier stage, in his experiments on the initial stages of the development of sea-urchins, starfishes, zoophytes, and the like. A Planarian worm cut into pieces developed a new worm of smaller size from each part. A mutilated Pluteus larva developed a new food-canal, and restored the whole typical form. His experiment of 1892 went farther still, for he succeeded in separating the first four segmentation-cells of the sea-urchin's egg; and from each cell obtained a developing embryo. These facts, he maintains, compel us to assume a mode of occurrence which is dynamicallysui generis, a“prospective tendency”which is a sub-concept in the Aristotelian“Dynamis.”And the essential difference between this kind of operation and a mechanical operation is, that the same typical effect is always reached, even if the whole normal causal nexus be disturbed. Even when forced into circuitous paths the embryo advances towards the same goal. Thus“vitalism,”that is, the independence and autonomy of the vital processes, is proved. The effect required is attained through“action at a distance,”a mode of happening which is specifically different from anything to be found in the inorganic world, and which has itsdirective, for instance, in the regeneration of lost parts,[pg 268]notin anything corporeal or substantial, but in the end to be attained.
In his work on“Organic Regulations,”Driesch collects from the most diverse biological fields more and more astonishing proofs of the activity of the living as contrasted with physico-chemical phenomena, and of the marvellous power the organism has to“help itself”and to attain the typical form and reach the end aimed at, even under the greatest diversity in the chain of conditions. The material here brought forward is enormous, and the author's grasp of it very remarkable; and not the least of the merits of the book is, that the bewildering wealth and diversity of these phenomena, which are usually presented to us as isolated and uncoordinated instances, is here definitely systematised according to their characteristic peculiarities, and from the point of view of the increasing distinctness of the“autonomy”of the processes. The system begins with the active regulatory functions of living matter in the chemistry of metabolism (see particularly the phenomena of immunisation), and ascends through different stages up to the regulations of regeneration. There could be no more impressive way of showing how little life and its“regulations”can be compared to the“self-regulations”of machines, or to the restoring of typical states of equilibrium and of form in the physical and chemical domain, to which the mechanists are fond of referring.
The facts thus empirically brought together are then[pg 269]linked together in a theory, and considered epistemologically. We may leave out of account all that is included in the treatment of modern idealism, immanence-philosophy, and solipsism. All this does not arise directly out of the vitalistic ideas, though the latter are fitted into an idealistic framework. Extremely vivid is the excursus on respiration and assimilation. (All processes of building up and breaking down take place within the organism under conditions notoriously different from those obtaining in the laboratory. It is radically impossible to speak of a living“substance”according to the formula CxHyOz, which assimilates and disassimilates itself [sibi].) Excellent, too, are Driesch's remarks on materialistic elucidations of inheritance and morphogenesis. It is quite impossible to succeed with epigenetic speculations on a material basis (cf.Haacke). Weismann is so far right, he admits, from his materialistic premisses when he starts with preformations. But his theory, and all others of the kind, can do nothing more than make an infinitely small photograph of the difficulty. They“explain”the processes of form-development and the regeneration of animals and plants, by constructing infinitely small animals and plants, which develop their form and regenerate lost parts. And Driesch holds it to be impossible to distribute a complicated tectonic among the elements of an equipotential system. In denying the materialistic theory of development, Driesch again determinedly“traverses”[pg 270]his own earlier views. He does this, too, when he now rejects the reconciliation between causality and teleology as different modes of looking at things. The teleological now seems to him itself a factor playing a part in the chain of causes, and thus making it teleological. The key-word of all is to him the“entelechy”of Aristotle.
In his last work on“The Soul,”Driesch follows the impossibilities of the mechanical theories from the domain of vital processes into that of behaviour and voluntary actions.
The Views of Albrecht and Schneider.An outlook and interpretation which Driesch102maintained for a while, but afterwards abandoned, has been developed in an original and peculiar fashion by Eugen Albrecht, Prosector and Pathologist in Munich.103It is the theory of different ways of looking at things. Albrecht indeed firmly adheres to the chemical and physical interpretation of vital processes, regards[pg 271]approximate completeness along these lines as the ideal of science, and maintains their essential sufficiency. But he holds that the mechanists have been mistaken and one-sided in that they have upheld this interpretation and mode of considering things as the sole and the“true”one. According to our subjective attitude to things and their changes, they appear to us in quite different series of associations, each of which forms a complete series in itself, running parallel to the others, but not intruding to fill up gaps in them. Microscopic and macroscopic study of things illustrate such separate and complete series. The classical example for the whole theory is the psycho-physical parallelism. Psychical phenomena are not“explained”when the correlated line of material changes and the phenomena of the nervous system have been traced out. Similarly with the series of“vital”phenomena,“vital”interpretation from the point of view of the“living organism,”runs parallel to, but distinct from the chemical and physical analyses of vital processes. But each of these parallel ways of regarding things is“true.”For the current separation of the“appearance”and“nature”of things is false, since it assumes that only one of the possible ways of regarding things,e.g., the mechanical-causal mode of interpretation is essential, and that all the others deal only with associated appearance.The idea that only one or two of these series can represent the“true nature”of the phenomenon“can[pg 272]only be called cheap dogma.”Each series is complete in itself, and every successive phase follows directly and without a break from the antecedent one, which alone explains it. In this lies the relative justification of the ever-recurring reactions to“vitalism.”This theory of Albrecht's has all the charms and difficulties, or impossibilities, of parallelistic interpretations in general. Its validity might be discussed with reference to the particular case of psycho-physical parallelism.104To make a sound basis for itself it would require first to clear up the causality problem, and to answer, or at least definitely formulate the great question whether causing (Bewirkung) is to be replaced by mere necessary sequence—for this is where it ends. The conclusion which, with regard to biological methods and ideals, seems to make all concessions to the purely mechanical mode of interpretation, is not sufficiently obvious from the premisses. If the vital series be a“real”one, we should expect that a“vitalistic”mode of interpretation, with methods and aims of its own, would be required, just as a special science of psychology is required. The assumption that each series is complete without a break, and that an all-including analysis of vital processes in terms of mechanical processes must[pg 273]ultimately be possible, is apetitio principii, and breaks down before the objections raised by the vitalists. The most central problem in the whole matter, namely, the relation of the causal to the teleological, has not been touched. These two concepts would, of course, not yield“parallels,”but would be different points of view, which could eventually be applied to each series.K. Camillo Schneider,105Privatdozent in Vienna, uses the soul, the psychical in the true sense, as the explanation[pg 274]of the vital. What had been thought secretly and individually by some of the vitalists already mentioned, but had, so to speak, cropped up only as the incidentally revealed reverse side of their negations of mechanism, Schneider attempts definitely to formulate into a theory. The chief merit of his book on“Vitalism”is to be found, in Chapters II. to X., in his thorough discussion of the chemical, physical, and mechanical theories along the special lines of each.The list of critics might be added to, and the number of standpoints in opposition to mechanism greatly increased. This diversity of standpoint, and the individual way in which each independent thinker reacts from the mechanical theory shows that here, as also in regard to Darwin's theory of selection, we have to do with a dogmatic theory and a forced simplification of phenomena, not with an objective and calm consideration of things as they are. It is a theory wheresimplexhas becomesigillum falsi.
An outlook and interpretation which Driesch102maintained for a while, but afterwards abandoned, has been developed in an original and peculiar fashion by Eugen Albrecht, Prosector and Pathologist in Munich.103It is the theory of different ways of looking at things. Albrecht indeed firmly adheres to the chemical and physical interpretation of vital processes, regards[pg 271]approximate completeness along these lines as the ideal of science, and maintains their essential sufficiency. But he holds that the mechanists have been mistaken and one-sided in that they have upheld this interpretation and mode of considering things as the sole and the“true”one. According to our subjective attitude to things and their changes, they appear to us in quite different series of associations, each of which forms a complete series in itself, running parallel to the others, but not intruding to fill up gaps in them. Microscopic and macroscopic study of things illustrate such separate and complete series. The classical example for the whole theory is the psycho-physical parallelism. Psychical phenomena are not“explained”when the correlated line of material changes and the phenomena of the nervous system have been traced out. Similarly with the series of“vital”phenomena,“vital”interpretation from the point of view of the“living organism,”runs parallel to, but distinct from the chemical and physical analyses of vital processes. But each of these parallel ways of regarding things is“true.”For the current separation of the“appearance”and“nature”of things is false, since it assumes that only one of the possible ways of regarding things,e.g., the mechanical-causal mode of interpretation is essential, and that all the others deal only with associated appearance.
The idea that only one or two of these series can represent the“true nature”of the phenomenon“can[pg 272]only be called cheap dogma.”Each series is complete in itself, and every successive phase follows directly and without a break from the antecedent one, which alone explains it. In this lies the relative justification of the ever-recurring reactions to“vitalism.”
This theory of Albrecht's has all the charms and difficulties, or impossibilities, of parallelistic interpretations in general. Its validity might be discussed with reference to the particular case of psycho-physical parallelism.104
To make a sound basis for itself it would require first to clear up the causality problem, and to answer, or at least definitely formulate the great question whether causing (Bewirkung) is to be replaced by mere necessary sequence—for this is where it ends. The conclusion which, with regard to biological methods and ideals, seems to make all concessions to the purely mechanical mode of interpretation, is not sufficiently obvious from the premisses. If the vital series be a“real”one, we should expect that a“vitalistic”mode of interpretation, with methods and aims of its own, would be required, just as a special science of psychology is required. The assumption that each series is complete without a break, and that an all-including analysis of vital processes in terms of mechanical processes must[pg 273]ultimately be possible, is apetitio principii, and breaks down before the objections raised by the vitalists. The most central problem in the whole matter, namely, the relation of the causal to the teleological, has not been touched. These two concepts would, of course, not yield“parallels,”but would be different points of view, which could eventually be applied to each series.
K. Camillo Schneider,105Privatdozent in Vienna, uses the soul, the psychical in the true sense, as the explanation[pg 274]of the vital. What had been thought secretly and individually by some of the vitalists already mentioned, but had, so to speak, cropped up only as the incidentally revealed reverse side of their negations of mechanism, Schneider attempts definitely to formulate into a theory. The chief merit of his book on“Vitalism”is to be found, in Chapters II. to X., in his thorough discussion of the chemical, physical, and mechanical theories along the special lines of each.
The list of critics might be added to, and the number of standpoints in opposition to mechanism greatly increased. This diversity of standpoint, and the individual way in which each independent thinker reacts from the mechanical theory shows that here, as also in regard to Darwin's theory of selection, we have to do with a dogmatic theory and a forced simplification of phenomena, not with an objective and calm consideration of things as they are. It is a theory wheresimplexhas becomesigillum falsi.
How all this affects the Religious Outlook.These denials and destructive criticisms of the mechanical theory, which are now continually cropping up,[pg 275]lead, as must be obvious, towards a deeper conception and interpretation of reality in general, and towards a religious conception in particular. Unquestionably the most important fact in connection with them is the fresh revelation of the depth of things and of appearance, the increased recognition that our knowledge is only leading us towards mystery.It is indeed questionable whether anything more than this can be said in regard to the problem of life, whether we ought not to content ourselves with recognising the limits of our knowledge, and reject all positive statements that go beyond these limits. For the mechanists are undoubtedly right in this, that“entelechy,”“the idea of the whole,”“co-operation,”“guidance,”“psychical factors,”and the like, are only names for riddles, and do not in themselves constitute knowledge.106The case here is somewhat similar to what we have already seen in connection with“antinomies.”They, too, give us no positive insight into the true nature of things, but they at any rate prove to us that we have not yet understood what that is. And, just as they show us that our knowledge of the world as it appears to us can never be complete, so here it appears that we come upon inexplicabilities even within the domain accessible to our knowledge.[pg 276]Thus the religious conception of the world gains something here as from the antinomies, namely, a fresh proof that the world which appears to us and can be comprehended by us, proclaims its true nature and depths, but does not reveal them. Perhaps there is still another gain. For in any case the vital processes and the marvels of evolution and development are examples of the way in which physical processes are constantly subject to a peculiar guidance, which certainly cannot be explained from themselves or in terms of mechanism, organisation, and the like. All attempts to demonstrate this in detail, all“explanations”in terms of dynamic co-operation, of dominants, of ideas, or anything else, are vague, and seem to go to pieces when we try to take firm hold of them. But the fact remains none the less.May not this be a paradigm of the processes and development of the world at large, and even of evolution in the domain of history? Here, too, all ideas of guidance, of endeavour after an aim, &c., which philosophical study of history or religious intuition seems to find, make shipwreck against the fact that every attempt to demonstrate their nature, fails. All these theories of influx, concursus, and so on, whether transcendental or immanent factors be employed, immediately become wooden, and never admit of verification in detail. But precisely the same is true of the dominance of the“idea,”or of the“law[pg 277]of evolution,”or of the“potential of development”in every developing organism. Yet incomprehensible and undemonstrable in detail as this“dominance”is, and completely as it may be concealed behind the play of physical causes, it is there, none the less.
These denials and destructive criticisms of the mechanical theory, which are now continually cropping up,[pg 275]lead, as must be obvious, towards a deeper conception and interpretation of reality in general, and towards a religious conception in particular. Unquestionably the most important fact in connection with them is the fresh revelation of the depth of things and of appearance, the increased recognition that our knowledge is only leading us towards mystery.
It is indeed questionable whether anything more than this can be said in regard to the problem of life, whether we ought not to content ourselves with recognising the limits of our knowledge, and reject all positive statements that go beyond these limits. For the mechanists are undoubtedly right in this, that“entelechy,”“the idea of the whole,”“co-operation,”“guidance,”“psychical factors,”and the like, are only names for riddles, and do not in themselves constitute knowledge.106The case here is somewhat similar to what we have already seen in connection with“antinomies.”They, too, give us no positive insight into the true nature of things, but they at any rate prove to us that we have not yet understood what that is. And, just as they show us that our knowledge of the world as it appears to us can never be complete, so here it appears that we come upon inexplicabilities even within the domain accessible to our knowledge.[pg 276]Thus the religious conception of the world gains something here as from the antinomies, namely, a fresh proof that the world which appears to us and can be comprehended by us, proclaims its true nature and depths, but does not reveal them. Perhaps there is still another gain. For in any case the vital processes and the marvels of evolution and development are examples of the way in which physical processes are constantly subject to a peculiar guidance, which certainly cannot be explained from themselves or in terms of mechanism, organisation, and the like. All attempts to demonstrate this in detail, all“explanations”in terms of dynamic co-operation, of dominants, of ideas, or anything else, are vague, and seem to go to pieces when we try to take firm hold of them. But the fact remains none the less.
May not this be a paradigm of the processes and development of the world at large, and even of evolution in the domain of history? Here, too, all ideas of guidance, of endeavour after an aim, &c., which philosophical study of history or religious intuition seems to find, make shipwreck against the fact that every attempt to demonstrate their nature, fails. All these theories of influx, concursus, and so on, whether transcendental or immanent factors be employed, immediately become wooden, and never admit of verification in detail. But precisely the same is true of the dominance of the“idea,”or of the“law[pg 277]of evolution,”or of the“potential of development”in every developing organism. Yet incomprehensible and undemonstrable in detail as this“dominance”is, and completely as it may be concealed behind the play of physical causes, it is there, none the less.