In attempting to define our attitude to the mechanical theory of life, we
have first of all to make sure that we have a right to take up a definite
position at all. We should have less right, or perhaps none, if this
theory of life were really of a purely “biological” nature, built up
entirely from the expert knowledge and data which the biologist alone
possesses. But the principles, assumptions, supplementary ideas and modes
of expression along all the six lines we have discussed, the style and
method according to which the hypothesis is constructed, the multitude of
separate presuppositions with which it works, and indeed everything that
helps to build up and knit the biological details into a scientific
hypothesis, are the materials of rational synthesis in general, and as
such are subject to general as well as to biological criticism. What is
there, for instance, in Weismann’s ingenious biophor-theory that can be
called specifically biological, and not borrowed from other parts of the
scientific system?
One advantage, indeed, the biologist always has in this matter, apart from
his special knowledge; that is, the technical instinct, the power of
scenting out, so to speak, and immediately feeling the importance of the
facts pertaining to his own discipline. It is this that gives every
specialist the advantage over the layman in dealing with the data of his
own subject. This power of instinctively appraising facts, which develops
in the course of all special work, can, for instance in hypotheses in the
domain of history, transform small details, which to the layman seem
trivial, into weighty arguments. Similarly it may be that the success of
the mechanical interpretation in regard to isolated processes may make its
validity for many other allied processes certain, even though there is no
precise proof of this. But we cannot regard this as a final demonstration
of the applicability of the mechanical theory, since the same technical
instinct in other experts leads them to reject the whole hypothesis.
But here we are met with something surprising. May it not be that while we
are impelled on general grounds to contend against the mechanical
interpretation of vital phenomena, we are not so impelled on _religious_
grounds? May it not be that the instinct of the religious consciousness is
misleading when it impels us—as probably every one will be able to certify
from his own experience—to rebel against this mechanisation of life, the
mechanical solution of its mysteries? Lotze, the energetic antagonist of
“vital force,” the founder of the mechanical theory of vital processes,
was himself a theist, and was so far from recognising any contradiction
between the mechanical point of view and the Christian belief in God, that
he included the former without ceremony in his theistic philosophical
speculations. His view has become that of many theologians, and is often
expressed in a definition of the boundaries between theology and natural
science. According to the idea which was formulated by Lotze, and
developed by others along his lines, the matter is quite simple. The
interest which religion has in the processes of nature is at once and
exclusively to be found in teleology. Are there purposes, plans, and ideas
which govern and give meaning to the whole? The interest of natural
science is purely in recognising inviolable causality; every phenomenon
must have its compelling and sufficient reason in the system of causes
preceding it. All that is and happens is absolutely determined by its
causes, and nothing, no _causæ finales_ for instance, can co-operate with
these causes in determining the result. But, as Lotze says, and as we have
repeatedly pointed out, causal explanation does not exclude a
consideration from the point of view of purpose, and the mechanical
interpretation does not do so either. For this is nothing more than the
causal explanation itself, only carried to complete consistency and
definiteness. Purposes and ideas are not efficient causes but results.
Where, for instance, there is a controlled purposive occurrence, the
“purpose” nowhere appears as a factor co-operating with the series of
causes, for these follow according to strict law, and the “purpose”
reveals itself at the close of the series, as the result of a closed
causal nexus, complete in itself, always provided that the initial links
in the chain have been accurately estimated. The same is true of the
processes of life. They are the ultimate result, strictly necessary and
sufficiently accounted for in terms of mechanical sequence, of a long
chain of causes whose initial links imply a definite constitution which
could not be further reduced. Whether this ultimate result is merely a
result or whether it is also a “purpose” is a question which, as we have
seen twice already, it is wholly beyond the power of the causal mode of
interpretation to answer. Given that an infinite intelligence in the world
wished to realise purposes without instituting them as directly
accomplished, but by letting them express themselves through a gradual
“becoming,” the method would be exactly what is shown in the mechanical
theory of life, that is, the primitive data and starting-points would have
inherent in them a peculiar constitution and a rigidly inexorable
orderliness of causal sequence. And Lotze emphasises that it would also be
worthier of God to achieve the greatest by means of the simplest, and to
work out the realisation of His eternal purposes according to the strict
inevitableness of mechanism, than to attain His ends through the
complicated means, the adventitious aids, and all the irregularities
implied in the incommensurable activities of a “vital force.” (“God needs
no minor gods.”)
To Lotze himself these original data and starting points are the primitive
forms of life, which, according to his view, are directly “given,” and
cannot be referred back to anything else (except to “creation”). But it is
obvious that his view can be enlarged and extended so as to refer the
derivation of the whole animate world to the original raw materials of the
cosmos (energy, matter, or whatsoever they may be), and to the orderly
process by which these materials were combined in various configurations
to form the chemical elements, the chemical compounds, living proteids,
the first cell, and the whole series of higher forms. If this nexus has
taken place, it is nothing else than the transformation of the “potential”
into the “actual” through strict causality. And if this actuality proves
itself to have claims, because of its own intrinsic worth, to be
considered as intelligent “purpose,” the whole system of means, including
the starting-point, can be recognised as the means to an end, and the
original wisdom and the intelligence which ordained the purpose is only
glorified the more through the great simplicity, the rational
comprehensibility, and the inexorable necessity of the system, which
excludes all chance, and therewith all possibility of error.
This extension of Lotze’s reconciliation of the mechanical causal with the
teleological point of view is impressive and, as far as it goes, also
quite convincing. It will never be given up, even if the point of view
should change somewhat. And we have already seen that it is quite
sufficient as long as we are dealing only with the question of teleology.
But we must ask whether religion will be satisfied with “teleology” alone,
or whether this is even the first requirement that it makes in regard to
natural phenomena. We have already asked the question and attempted to
clear the ground for an answer. Let us try to make it more definite.
Many people will have a certain uneasiness in regard to the Lotzian ideas;
they will be unable to rid themselves of a feeling that this way of
looking at things is only a _pis aller_ for the religious point of view,
and that the fundamental requirements of religious feeling receive very
inadequate satisfaction on this method. The world of life which has arisen
thus is altogether too rational and transparent. It is calculable and
mathematical. It satisfies well enough the need for teleology, and with
that the need for a supreme, universally powerful and free intelligence;
but it gives neither support nor nourishment to the essential element in
religious feeling, through which alone faith becomes in the strict sense
religious. Religion, even Christian religion, is, so to speak, a
stratified structure, a graduated pyramid, expressing itself, at its
second (and undoubtedly higher) level, in our recognition of purpose, the
rationality of the world, our own spiritual and personal being and worth,
but implying at its basis an inward sense of the mysterious, a joy in that
which is incommensurable and unspeakable, which fills us with awe and
devotion. And religion at the second stage must not sweep away the essence
of the stage below, but must include it, at the same time informing it
with new significance. Whoever does not possess his religion in this way
will agree with, and will be quite satisfied with the Lotzian standpoint.
But to any one who has experience of the most characteristic element in
religion, it will be obvious that there must be a vague but deep-rooted
antipathy between religion and the mathematical-mechanical conception of
things. Evidence of the truth of this is to be found in the instinctive
perceptions and valuations which mark even the naïve expressions of the
religious consciousness.(75) For it is in full sympathy with a world which
is riddled with what is inconceivable and incommensurable, in full
sympathy with every evidence of the existence of such an element in the
world of nature and mind, and therefore with every proof that the merely
mechanical theory has its limits, that it does not suffice, and that its
very insufficiency is a proof that the world is and remains in its depths
mysterious. Now we have already said that the true sphere for such feeling
is not the outer court of nature, but within the realm of the emotional
life and of history, and, on the other hand, that even if the attempt to
trace life back to the simpler forces of nature were successful, we should
still be confronted with the riddle of the sphinx. But any one who would
say frankly what he felt would at once be obliged to admit that the
religious sense is very strongly stirred by the mystery of vital
phenomena, and that in losing this he would lose a domain very dear to
him. These sympathies and antipathies are in themselves sufficient to give
an interest to the question of the insufficiency of the mechanical view of
things.
For it is by no means the case that the mechanical theory, with its
premisses and principles, is the interpretation that best fits the facts,
and that most naturally arises out of a calm consideration of the animate
world. It is an artificial scheme, and astonishing energy has been
expended on the attempt to fit it to the actual world, that it may make
this orderly and translucent. It certainly yields this service so far, but
not without often becoming a kind of strait-jacket, and revealing itself
as an artificiality. In so far as the special problems of biology are
concerned, we shall afterwards follow our previous method of taking our
orientation from those specialists in the subject who, in reaction from
the one-sidedness of the mechanical doctrine, have founded the
“neo-vitalism” of to-day. Here we are only concerned with the generalities
and presuppositions of the theory.
We must dispute even the main justification of the theory, which is sought
for in the old maxim of parsimony in the use of principles of explanation
(_entia_, and also _principia, præter necessitatem non esse
multiplicanda_), and in Kant’s “regulative principle,” that science must
proceed as if everything could ultimately be explained in terms of
mechanism. For surely our task is to try to explain things, not at any
cost with the fewest possible principles, but rather with the aid of those
principles which appear most correct. If nature is not fundamentally
simple, then it is not scientific but unscientific to simplify it
theoretically. And the proposition bracketed above has its obvious
converse side, that while entities and principles must not be multiplied
except when it is necessary, on the other hand their number must not be
arbitrarily lessened. To proceed according to the fundamental maxims of
the mechanistic view can only be wholesome for a time and, so to speak,
for pædagogical reasons. To apply them seriously and permanently would be
highly injurious, for, by prejudging what is discoverable in nature, it
would tend to prevent the calm, objective study of things which asks for
nothing more than to see them as they are. It would thus destroy the
fineness of our appreciation of what there really is in nature. This is
true alike of forcible attempts to reduce the processes of life to
mechanical processes, and of the Darwinian doctrine of the universal
dominance of utility. Both bear unmistakably the stamp of foregone
conclusions, and betray a desire for the simplest, rather than for the
most correct principles of interpretation.
There is one point which presses itself on the notice even of outsiders,
and is probably realised even more keenly by specialists. The confidence
of the supporters of the mechanical theories of earlier days, from
Descartes onward, that animals and the bodies of men were machines,
mechanical automata, down to the mechanical theories of Lamettrie and
Holbach, of _l’homme machine_, and of the _système de la nature_, was at
least as great as, probably greater than, that of the supporters of the
modern theories. Yet how naïve and presumptuous seem the crude and wooden
theories upon which the mechanical system was formerly built up, and how
falsely interpreted seem the physiological and other facts which lent them
support, when seen in the light of our modern physiological knowledge.
Vaucanson’s or Drozsch’s duck-automaton or clockwork-man, with which the
mechanical theorists of bygone days amused themselves, would not go far to
encourage the physiologist of to-day to pursue his mechanical studies, but
would rather throw a vivid light on the impossibility of comparing the
living “machine” with machines in the usual sense. For things emphatically
do not happen within the living organism in the same way as in the
automatic duck, and the more exact the resemblance to the functions of a
“real” duck became, the more did the system of means by which the end was
attained become unlike vital processes. It is difficult to resist the
impression that in another hundred years,—perhaps again from the
standpoint of new and definitely accepted mechanical explanations,—people
will regard our developmental mechanics, cellular mechanics, and other
vital mechanics much in the same way as we now look on Vaucanson’s duck.
Associated or even identical with this is the fact that in proportion as
mechanical interpretation advances, the difficulties it has to surmount
continually crop up anew. Processes which seem of the simplest kind and
the most likely to be capable of purely mechanical explanation, processes
such as those of assimilation, digestion, respiration, for which it was
believed that exact parallels existed in the purely mechanical domain, as,
for instance, in the osmotic processes of porous membranes, are seen when
closely scrutinised as they occur in the living body to be extremely
complex; in fact they have to be transferred “provisionally” from the
mechanical to the vital rubric. To this category belong the whole modern
development of the cell-theory, which replaces the previously _single_
mechanism in the living body by millions of them, every one of which
raises as many problems as the one had done in the days of cruder
interpretation. Every individual cell, as it appears to our understanding
to-day, is at least as complicated a riddle as the whole organism formerly
appeared.
But further: the modern development of biology has emphasised a special
problem, which was first formulated by Leibnitz (though it is in
antithesis to his fundamental Monad-theory), and which appears incapable
of solution on mechanical lines. Leibnitz declared living beings to be
“machines,” but machines of a peculiar kind. Even the most complicated
machine, in the ordinary sense, consists of a combination of smaller
“machines,” that is to say, of wheels, systems of levers, &c., of a
simpler kind. And these sub-machines may in their turn consist of still
simpler ones, and so on. But ultimately a stage is reached when the
component parts are homogeneous, and cannot be analysed into simpler
machines. It is otherwise with the organism. According to Leibnitz it
consists of machines made up of other machines, and so on, into the
infinitely little. However far we can proceed in our analysis of the
parts, we shall still find that they are syntheses, made up of most
ingeniously complex component parts, and this as far as our powers of
seeing and distinguishing will carry us. That is to say: organisation is
continued on into the infinitely little.
Leibnitz’s illustration of the fish-pond is well known. He could have no
better corroboration of his theory than the results of modern
investigation afford. His doctrine of the continuation of organisation
downwards into ever smaller expression is confirmed to a certain extent
even by anatomy. By analysing structural organisation down to cells a
definite point seemed to have been reached. But it now appears that at
that point the problem is only beginning. One organisation is made up of
other organisations—cells, protoplasm, nucleus, nucleolus, centrosomes,
and so on, according to the power of the microscope; and these structures,
instead of explaining the vital functions of growth, development,
multiplication by division, and the rest, simply repeat them on a smaller
scale, and are thus in their turn living units, the aggregation of which
is illustrated better by the analogy of a social organism than by that of
a mechanical structure.
In order to follow the mechanical explanation along the six lines we have
previously indicated, we shall, as we have already said, entrust ourselves
to the specialists who are on the opposite side. The difficulties and
objections which the mechanical theory has to face have forced themselves
insistently upon us even in the course of a short sketch such as has just
been given, but they will be clearly realised if we approach them from the
other side. But, first of all, a word as to the fundamental and, it is
alleged, unassailable doctrine on which the theory as a whole is based,
the “law of the conservation of energy.” The appeal to this, at any rate
in the way in which it is usually made, is apt to be so distorted that the
case must first be clearly stated before we can get further with the
discussion.
The Law of the Conservation of Energy.
Helmholtz’s proof established mathematically what Kant had already, by
direct insight, advanced as an _à priori_ fundamental axiom: that in any
given system the sum of energy can neither increase (impossibility of a
_perpetuum mobile_) nor diminish (there is no disappearance of energy, but
only transformation into another form). But even the vitalist had no need
to deny this proposition. The “energy” which is required for the work of
directing, setting agoing, changing and rearranging the chemico-physical
processes in the body, and bringing about the effective reactions to
stimuli which result in “development,” “transmission,” “regeneration,” and
so on—if indeed any energy is required—of course could not come “from
within” as a spontaneous increase of the existing sum of energy—that
would, indeed, be a magical becoming out of nothing!—but must naturally be
thought of as coming “from without.” The appeal to the law of the
conservation of energy is therefore in itself irrelevant; but it conceals
behind it an assertion of a totally different kind, namely, that in
relation to physico-chemical sequences there can be no “without,” nothing
transcending them—an assertion which Helmholtz’s arguments cannot and were
never intended to establish. But before any definite attitude to this
newly imported assertion could be taken up, it would require to be
distinctly defined, and that would lead us at once into all the depths of
epistemological discussion. Here, therefore, we can only say so much: If
this assertion is accepted it is well to see where it carries us; namely,
back to the first-described naïve standpoint, which, without critical
scruples, quite seriously accepts the world as it appears to it for the
reality, and quite seriously speaks of an infinity lying in time behind
us—and therefore come to an end—and is not in the least disturbed from its
“dogmatic slumber” by this or any of the other great antinomies of our
conception of the universe. And it remains, too, for this standpoint to
come to terms with the fact that, in voluntary actions, of which we have
the most direct knowledge, we have through our will the power of
intervention in the physico-chemical nexus of our bodily energies—a fact
which implies the existence of a “without,” from which interpolations or
influences may flow into the physico-chemical system, even if there be
none in regard to the domain of “vital” phenomena. And we should require
to find out through what parallelistic or abruptly idealistic system the
“without” was done away with in this case. For if a transcendental basis,
or reverse side, or cause of things, be admitted—even if only in the form
of our materialistic popular metaphysics (the “substance” of Haeckel’s
“world-riddle”)—then a “without,” from which primarily the cosmic system
with its constant sum of matter and energy is explained, is also admitted,
and it is difficult to see why it should have exhausted itself in this
single effort.
Criticisms of the Mechanistic Theory of Life.
The course of the mechanistic theory of life has been surprisingly similar
to that of its complement, the theory of the general evolution of the
organic world. The two great doctrines of the schools, Darwinism on the
one hand, the mechanical interpretation of life on the other, are both
tottering, not because of the criticism of outsiders, but of specialists
within the schools themselves. And the interest which religion has in this
is the same in both cases: the transcendental nature of things, the
mysterious depth of appearance, which these theories denied or obscured,
become again apparent. The incommensurableness and mystery of the world,
which are, perhaps, even more necessary to the very life of religion than
the right to regard it teleologically, reassert themselves afresh in the
all-too-comprehensible and mathematically-formulated world, and
re-establish themselves, notwithstanding obstinate and persistent attempts
to do away with them. This is perhaps to the advantage of both natural
science and religion: to the advantage of religion because it can with
difficulty co-exist with the universal dominance of the mathematical way
of looking at things; to the advantage of natural science because, in
giving up the one-sidedness of the purely quantitative outlook, it does
not give up its “foundations,” its “right to exist,” but only a _petitio
principii_ and a prejudice that compelled it to exploit nature rather than
to explain it, and to prescribe its ways rather than to seek them out.
The reaction from the one-sided mechanical theories shows itself in many
different ways and degrees. It may, according to the individual
naturalist, affect the theory as a whole, or only certain parts of it, or
only particular lines. It starts with mere criticism and with objections,
which go no further than saying that “in the meantime” we are still far
from having reached a physico-chemical solution of the riddle of life; it
may ascend through all stages up to an absolute rejection of the theory as
an idiosyncrasy of the time which impedes the progress of investigation,
and as an uncritical prejudice of the schools. It may remain at the level
of mere protest, and content itself with demonstrating the insufficiency
of the mechanical explanation, without attempting to formulate any
independent theory for the domain of the vital; or it may construct a
specifically biological theory, claiming independence amid other
disciplines, and basing this claim on the autonomy of vital processes; or
it may widen out deliberately into metaphysical study and speculation.
Taken at all these levels it presents such a complete section of the trend
of modern ideas and problems that it would be an attractive study even
apart from the special interest which attaches to it from the point of
view of religious and idealistic conceptions of the universe.
Both Liebig and Johannes Müller remained vitalists, notwithstanding the
discovery of the synthesis of urea and the increasing number of organic
compounds which were built up artificially by purely chemical methods. It
was only about the middle of the last century that the younger generation,
under the leadership, in Germany, of Du Bois-Reymond in particular, went
over decidedly to the mechanistic side, and carried the doctrines of the
school to ever fresh victories. But opposition was not lacking from the
outset, though it was restrained and cautious.
Virchow’s “Caution”.
Here, as also in regard to “Darwinism,” which was advanced about the same
time, the typical advocate of “caution” was Rudolf Virchow. His doubts and
reservations found utterance very soon after the theory itself had been
promulgated. In his “Cellular Pathologie,”(76) and in an essay on “The Old
Vitalism and the New,”(77) he puts in a word for a _vis vitalis_. The old
vitalism, he declared, had been false because it assumed, not a _vis_, but
a _spiritus vitalis_. The substances in animate and in inanimate bodies
have undoubtedly absolutely the same properties. Nevertheless, “we must at
once rid ourselves of the scientific prudery of regarding the processes of
life solely as the mechanical result of the molecular forces inherent in
their constituent bodily parts.” The essential feature of life is a
derived and communicated force _additional_ to the molecular forces.
Whence it comes we are not told. He glided all round the problem with
platitudinarian expressions, which were intended to show his own adherence
as a matter of course to the new biological school, and which revealed at
the same time his striking incapacity for defining a problem with any
precision. At a “certain period in the evolution of the earth” this force
arose, as the ordinary mechanical movements “swung over” into the vital.
But it is thus a special form of movement, which detaches itself from the
great constants of general movement, and runs its course alongside of, and
in constant relation to, these. (Did ever vitalist assert more?) After
thus preparing the way for a return of the veering process at a particular
stage of evolution, and giving the necessary assurances against the
“diametrically opposed dualistic position,” Virchow employs almost all the
arguments against the mechanical theory which vitalists have ever brought
forward. Even the catalytic properties of ferments are above the
“ordinary” physical and chemical forces. The movement of crystallisation,
too, cannot be compared with the vital movement. For vital force is not
immanent in matter, but is always the product of previous life.(78) In the
simplest processes of growth and nutrition the _vis vitalis_ plays its
vital _rôle_. This is true in a much greater degree of the processes of
development and morphogenesis. In the phenomena of irritability life
reveals its spontaneity through “responses,” and so on. “Peu d’anatomie
pathologique éloigne du vitalisme, beaucoup d’anatomie pathologique y
ramène.”
It is impossible to make much of this position. It leaves the theory with
one of the opposing parties, the practice with the other, and the problem
just where it was before.
Preyer’s Position.
Along with Virchow, we must name another of the older generation, the
physiologist William Preyer, who combated “vitalism,” “dualism,” and
“mechanism” with equal vehemence, and issued a manifesto, already somewhat
solemn and official, against “vital force.” And yet he must undoubtedly be
regarded as a vitalist by mechanists and vitalists alike.(79) He is more
definite than Virchow, for he does not content himself with general
statements as to the “origin” of vital force, and of the “swinging over”
of the merely mechanical energies into the domain of the vital, but holds
decidedly to the proposition _omne vivum e vivo_. He therefore maintains
that life has always existed in the cosmos, and entirely rejects
spontaneous generation.
The fallacy, he says, of the mechanistic claims was due to the increasing
number of physical explanations of isolated vital phenomena, and of
imitations of the chemical products of organic metabolism. A wrong
conclusion was drawn from these. “Any one who hopes to deduce from the
chemical and physical properties of the fertilised egg the necessity that
an animal, tormented by hunger and love must, after a certain time, arise
therefrom, has a pathetic resemblance to the miserable manufacturers of
homunculi.” Life is one of the underivable and inexplicable fundamental
functions of universal being. From all eternity life has only been
produced from life.
As Preyer accepts the Kant-Laplace theory of the origin of our earth from
the sun, he reaches ideas which have points of contact with the
“cosmo-organic” ideas of Fechner. Life was present even when the earth was
a fiery fluid sphere, and was possibly more general and more abundant then
than it is now. And life as we know it may only be a smaller and isolated
expression of that more general life.(80)
Among the younger generation of specialists, those most often quoted as
opponents of the mechanical theory are probably Bunge, Rindfleisch, Kerner
von Marilaun, Neumeister and Wolff. A special group among them, not very
easy to classify, may be called the Tectonists. Associated with them is
Reinke’s “Theory of Dominants.” Driesch started from their ranks, and is a
most interesting example of consistent development from a recognition of
the impossibilities of the mechanistic position to an individually
thought-out vitalistic theory. Hertwig, too, takes a very definite
position of his own in regard to these matters. Perhaps the most original
contribution in the whole field is Albrecht’s “Theory of Different Modes
of Regarding Things.” We may close the list with the name of K. C.
Schneider, who has carried these modern ideas on into metaphysical
speculation. Several others might be mentioned along with and connecting
these representative names.(81)
The Position Of Bunge and Other Physiologists.
For a long time one of the most prominent figures in the controversy was
Prof. G. Bunge, of Basle, who was one of the first modern physiologists to
champion vitalism, and who has tried to show by analogies and
illustrations what is necessarily implied in vital activity.(82) The
mechanical reduction of vital phenomena to physico-chemical forces, he
says, is impossible, and becomes more and more so as our knowledge
deepens. He brings forward a series of convincing examples of the way in
which apparent mechanical explanations have broken down. The absorption of
the chyle through the walls of the intestine seemed to be a mechanically
intelligible process of osmosis and diffusion. But in reality it proves to
be rather a process of selection on the part of the epithelial cells of
the intestine, analogous to the selection and rejection exercised
elsewhere by unicellular organisms. In the same way the epithelial cells
of the mammary glands “select” the suitable substances from the blood. It
is impossible to explain in a mechanical way the power which directs the
innumerable different chemical and physical processes within the organism,
whether they be the bewilderingly purposeful reactions in the individual
life of the cell, which seem to point to psychic processes within the
plasm, or the riddles of development and of inheritance in particular; for
how can a spermatozoon, so small that 500 millions can lie on a cubic
line, be the bearer of all the peculiarities of the father to the son?
In Lecture III. Bunge defines his attitude towards the law of the
conservation of energy. In so doing he unconsciously follows the lines
laid down by Descartes. All processes of movement and all functions
exhibited by the living substance are the results of the accumulated
potential energies, and the sums of work done and energy utilised remain
the same. But the liberation and the direction of these energies is a
factor by itself, which neither increases nor diminishes the sum of
energies. “_Occasiones_” and “_causæ_” are brought into the field once
more. The energies effect the phenomena, but they require “_occasiones_”
to liberate them—thus a stone may fall to the ground by virtue of the
potential energies stored in it at the time of its suspension, but it
cannot fall until the thread by which it hangs has been cut. The function
of the “_occasio_” itself is something quite outside of and without
relation to the effect caused; it is a matter of indifference whether the
thread be cut gently through with a razor or shot in two with a cannon
ball.
Kassowitz(83) is an instructive example of how much the force of criticism
has been recognised even by those occupying a convinced mechanical point
of view. He subjects all the different theories which attempt to explain
the chief vital phenomena in mechanical terms to a long and exhaustive
examination. The theories of the organism as a thermodynamic engine,
osmotic theories, theories of ferments, interpretations in terms of
electro-dynamics and molecular-physics—are all examined (chap. iv.); and
the failure of all these hypotheses, notwithstanding the enormous amount
of ingenuity expended in their construction, is summed up in an emphatic
“_Ignoramus_.” “The failure is a striking one,” and it is frankly admitted
that, in strong contrast to the earlier mood of confident hope, there now
prevails a mood of resignation in regard to the mechanical-experimental
investigation of the living organism, and that even specialists of the
first rank are finding that they have to reckon again seriously with vital
force. This breakdown and these admissions do not exactly tend to
prejudice us in favour of the author’s own attempt to substantiate new
mechanical theories.
In the comprehensive text-book of physiological chemistry by R.
Neumeister, the mechanical standpoint seemed to be adhered to as the
ideal. But the same writer forsakes it entirely, and disputes it
energetically in his most recent work, “Betrachtungen über das Wesen der
Lebenserscheinungen”(84) (“Considerations as to the Nature of Vital
Phenomena”). He passes over all the larger problems, such as those of
development, inheritance, regeneration, and confines himself in the main
to the physiological functions of protoplasm, especially to those of the
absorption of food and metabolism. And he shows, by means of
illustrations, in part Bunge’s, in part his own, and in close sympathy
with Wundt’s views, that even these vital phenomena cannot possibly be
explained in terms of chemical affinity, physical osmosis, and the like.
In processes of selection (such as, for instance, the excretion of urea
and the retention of sugar in the blood), the “aim is obvious, but the
causes cannot be recognised.” Psychical processes play a certain part in
the functions of protoplasm in the form of qualitative and quantitative
sensitiveness. All the mechanical processes in living organisms are
initiated and directed by psychical processes. Physical, chemical and
mechanical laws are perfectly valid, but they are not absolutely dominant.
Living matter is to be defined as “a unique chemical system, the molecules
of which, by their peculiar reciprocal action, give rise to psychical and
material processes in such a way that the processes of the one kind are
always causally conditioned and started by those of the other kind.” The
psychical phenomena he regards as transcendental, supernatural,
“mystical,” yet unquestionably also subject to a strict causal nexus,
although the causality must remain for ever concealed. Starting from this
basis, he analyses and rejects the explanations which have been offered in
terms of the analogy of ferments, enzymes, or catalytic processes. In
particular, he disputes Ostwald’s “Energismus” and Verworn’s Biogen
hypothesis.(85)
Among the vitalists of to-day, one of the most frequently cited, perhaps,
except Driesch the most frequently cited, is G. Wolff, a _Privatdozent_,
formerly at Würzburg, now at Basle. He has only published short lectures
and essays, and these deal not so much with the mechanical theory as with
Darwinism.(86) But in these writings his main argument is that of his
concluding chapter: the spontaneous adaptiveness of the organism, which
nullifies all contingent theories to explain the purposiveness in ontogeny
and phylogeny. And in his lecture, “Mechanismus und Vitalismus,”(87) in
which he directs his attention especially to criticising Bütschli’s
defence of mechanism, the only problem to which prominence is given is the
one with which we are here concerned. In spite of their brevity, these
writings have given rise to much controversy, because what is peculiar to
the two standpoints is described with precision, and the problem is
clearly defined. His criticism had its starting-point in, and received a
special impulse from an empirical proof, due to a very happy experiment of
his own, of the marvellous regenerative capacity, and the inherent
purposive activity of the living organism. He succeeded in proving that if
the lens of the eye of the newt be excised, it may be regrown. The
importance of this fact is greatly increased if we trace out in detail the
various impossible rival mechanical interpretations which have grown up
around this interesting case. As Driesch says, “It is not a restoration
starting from the wound, it is a substitution starting from a different
place.”
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.(88) Very characteristic is
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 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’s(89) view 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 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.(90) In 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.”(92) He 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 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”(93) bear
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 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.”(94) In 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 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,(95) the 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 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 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,”(96) Reinke, 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 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 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 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.”(97) Very 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 “physiological _x_,” 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, 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 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, 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).
Ontogenesis(98) is 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 of mechanism in the
strict sense. And the whole is directed by purpose.(99) The 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,”(100) he
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 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 possess _in parvo_ this 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.(101) In 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 dynamically
_sui 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 its
_directive_, for instance, in the regeneration of lost parts, _not_ in
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 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” 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 Driesch(102) maintained for a while,
but afterwards abandoned, has been developed in an original and peculiar
fashion by Eugen Albrecht, Prosector and Pathologist in Munich.(103) It is
the theory of different ways of looking at things. Albrecht indeed firmly
adheres to the chemical and physical interpretation of vital processes,
regards 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 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 ultimately be possible, is a _petitio 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,(105) Privatdozent in Vienna, uses the soul, the
psychical in the true sense, as the explanation 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 where _simplex_ has become _sigillum
falsi_.
How all this affects the Religious Outlook.
These denials and destructive criticisms of the mechanical theory, which
are now continually cropping up, 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.(106) The 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. 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 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.