beginning, and at the end, in spite of all further endeavour, may
*remain* that and nothing more. That may occur in the first as well
as in the second group of our division of history with regard to
its relation to bodies. Take a cloud and describe its history from
the beginning to the end: there would never be much more than pure
description. Or take one pair of dogs and describe them and their
offspring for four generations or more: I doubt if you will get beyond
mere descriptions in this case either. The only step beyond a mere
enumeration which we can be said to have advanced in these instances,
consists in the conviction, gained at the end of the analysis, that
nothing more than such an enumeration is in any way *possible*.
Quite the opposite happens when “history” deals with the individual
from the egg to the adult: here the whole series of historical facts is
seen to form one whole. This case therefore we shall call not history,
but *evolution*, an evolving of something; the word “evolution” being
understood here in a much wider sense than on former occasions,[162] and
*including*, for instance, the embryological alternative “evolutio” or
“epigenesis.”
[162] See pp. 26, 45, 54, etc.
And half-way between enumeration and evolution there now stands a type
of history which is more than the one and less than the other: there is
a kind of intelligible connection between the consecutive historical
stages and yet the concept of a whole does not come in. The geological
history of a mountain or of an island is a very clear instance of this
class. It is easy to see here, how what *has been* always becomes the
foundation of what *will be* in the *next* phase of the historical
process. There is a sort of *cumulation* of consecutive phases, the
later ones being impossible without the earlier. So we shall speak
of the type of “historical cumulation” as standing between evolution
and bare temporal sequence. By means of historical cumulations history
may fairly claim to “explain” things. We “understand” a mountain or an
island in all its actual characteristics, if we know its history. This
“historical understanding” rests on the fact that what first appeared
as an inconceivable complex has been resolved into a sequence of single
events, each of which may claim to have been explained by actually
existing sciences. The complex has been explained as being, though not
a real “whole,” yet a sum of singularities, every element of which is
familiar.
But you may tell me that my discussion of evolution and of cumulation,
as the higher aspects of history, is by no means complete; nay,
more--that it is altogether wrong. You would certainly not be mistaken
in calling my analysis incomplete. We have called one type of history
evolution, the other cumulation; but how have these higher types been
reached? Has historical enumeration itself, which was supposed to
stand at the beginning of all analysis, or has “history” itself in its
strictest sense, as relating to the single as such, risen unaided into
something more than “history”? By no means: history has grown beyond
its bounds by the aid of something from without. It is unhistorical
elements that have brought us from mere history to more than history.
We have created the concept of evolution, not from our knowledge of the
single line of events attendant on a single egg of a frog, but from our
knowledge that there are billions or more of frogs’ eggs, all destined
to the same “history,” which therefore is not history at all. We have
created the concept of cumulation not from the historical study of
a single mountain, but from our knowledge of physics and chemistry
and so-called dynamical geology: by the aid of these sciences we
“understood” historically, and thus our understanding came from another
source than history itself.
2. PHYLOGENETIC POSSIBILITIES
Does history always gain its importance from what it is not? Must
history always lose its “historical” aspect, in order to become of
importance to human knowledge? And can it *always* become “science” by
such a transformation? We afterwards shall resume this discussion on
a larger scale, but at present we shall apply what we have learned to
hypothetic phylogeny. What then are the possibilities of phylogeny, to
what class of history would it belong if it were complete? Of course, we
shall not be able to answer this question fully; for phylogeny is *not*
complete, and scarcely anything is known about the factors which act
in it. But in spite of that, so much, it seems to me, is gained by our
analysis of the possible aspects of history and of the factors possibly
concerned in transformism, that we are at least able to formulate the
possibilities of a phylogeny of the future in their strict logical
outlines.
Darwinism and Lamarckism, regarding organic forms as contingent, must
at the same time regard organic history as a cumulation; they indeed
*might* claim to furnish an historical explanation in the realm of
biology--if only their statements were unimpeachable, which as we have
seen, they are not.
But any transformistic theory, which locates the very principle of
phylogeny in the organism itself, and to which therefore even organic
forms would be not accidental but essential, might be forced to regard
the descent of organisms as a true evolution. The singularities in
phylogenetic history would thus become links in one whole: history
proper would become more than history. But I only say that phylogeny
*might* be evolution, and in fact I cannot admit more than this *a
priori*, even on the basis of an internal transformistic principle,
as has been assumed. Such a principle also might lead always from one
typical state of organisation to the next: but *ad infinitum*.[163]
Then phylogeny, though containing what might in some sense be called
“progress,” would not be “evolution”; it might even be called cumulation
in such a case, in spite of the internal transforming principle, though,
of course, cumulation from within would always mean something very
different from cumulation from without.[164]
[163] An immanent vitalistic phylogeny *without* a pre-established end
has recently been advocated by H. Bergson (*L’évolution créatrice*,
Paris, 1907).
[164] In this connection the problem may be raised, whether there can be
such a thing as unchangeable “species” in spite of the mutability of the
individuals. Compare page 251, note 1.
But we must leave this problem an open question, as long as our actual
knowledge about transformism remains as poor as it is. We need only add,
for the sake of logical interest, that phylogeny, as a true evolution,
would necessarily be characterised by the possibility of being repeated.
3. THE HISTORY OF MANKIND
We only assume hypothetically that phylogeny has happened, and we know
scarcely anything about the factors concerned in it. Now, it certainly
would be of great importance, if at least in a small and definite field
of biology we were able to state a little more, if the *mere fact* of
phylogeny, of “history,” were at least beyond any doubt within a certain
range of our biological experience. And indeed there is one department
of knowledge, where history, as we know, *has happened*, and where we
also know at least some of the factors concerned in it.
I refer to the history of mankind; and I use the expression not at all
in its anthropological or ethnographical sense, as you might expect
from a biologist, but in its proper and common sense as the history of
politics and of laws and of arts, of literature and of sciences: in a
word, the history of civilisation. Here is the only field, where we know
that there actually *are* historical facts: let us try to find out what
these facts can teach us about their succession.
The theory of history in this narrower meaning of the word has been
the subject of very numerous controversies in the last twenty years,
especially in Germany, and these controversies have led very deeply into
the whole philosophical view of the universe. We shall try to treat our
subject as impartially as possible.
Hegel says, in the introduction to his *Phänomenologie des Geistes*:
“*Die Philosophie muss sich hüten erbaulich sein zu wollen*”
(“Philosophy must beware of trying to be edifying”). These words,
indeed, ought to be inscribed on the lintel of the door that leads
into historical methodology, for they have been sadly neglected by
certain theoretical writers. Instead of analysing history in order to
see what it would yield to philosophy, they have often made philosophy,
especially moral philosophy, the starting-point of research, and history
then has had to obey certain doctrines from the very beginning.
We shall try as far as we can not to become “erbaulich” in our
discussions. We want to learn from history for the purposes of
philosophy, and we want to learn from history as from a phenomenon in
time and in space, just as we have learnt from all the other phenomena
regarding life in nature. Every class of phenomena of course may
be studied with respect to generalities as well as with respect to
particulars. The particular, it is true, has not taught us much in our
studies so far. Perhaps it may be successful in the domain of history
proper.
If I take into consideration what the best authors of the last century
have written about human history with respect to its general value, I
cannot help feeling that none of them has succeeded in assigning to
history a position where it would really prove to be of great importance
for the aims of philosophical inquiry. Is that the fault of the authors
or of human history? And what then would explain the general interest
which almost every one takes, and which I myself take in history in
spite of this unsatisfactory state of things?
CUMULATIONS IN HUMAN HISTORY
Let us begin our analytical studies of the value and the meaning of
human history, by considering some opinions which deserve the foremost
place in our discussion, not as being the first in time, but as being
the first in simplicity. I refer to the views of men like Buckle, Taine,
and Lamprecht, and especially Lamprecht, for he has tried the hardest to
justify theoretically what he regards the only scientific aim of history
to be. If we may make use of our logical scheme of the three possible
aspects of history, it is clear from the beginning that the history of
mankind, as understood by the three authors we have named, but most
particularly by Lamprecht, is neither a mere enumeration nor a true
evolution, but that it has to do with *cumulations*, in the clearest
of their possible forms. The processes of civilisation among the
different peoples are in fact to be compared logically with the origin
of volcanoes or mountain-ranges in Japan, or in Italy, or in America,
and show us a typical series of consecutive phases, as do these. There
exists, for instance, in the sphere of any single civilisation an
economic system, founded first on the exchange of natural products,
and then on money. There are, or better, perhaps, there are said to
be, characteristic phases succeeding one another in the arts, such as
the “typical,” the “individualistic,” and the “subjective” phases. Any
civilisation may be said to have its “middle ages,” and so on. All these
are “laws” of course in the meaning of “rules” only, for they are far
from being elemental, they are not “principles” in any sense. And there
are other sorts of “rules” at work for exceptional cases: revolutions
have their rules, and imperialism, for instance, has its rules also.
Now, as the consecutive phases of history have been shown to be
true cumulations, it follows that the rules which are revealed by
our analysis, are rules relating to the very origin of cumulations
also. The real *element* upon which the cumulation-phases, and the
cumulation-rules together rest, is the human individual as the bearer
of its psychology. Nobody, it seems to me, has shown more clearly than
Simmel that it is the human individual, *qua* individual, which is
concerned in *every* kind of history.
History, viewed as a series of cumulations, may in fact claim to
satisfy the intellect by “explaining” a good deal of historical facts.
It explains by means of the elemental factor of individual psychology,
which every one knows from himself, and by the simple concept that there
is a cumulation, supported by language and by writing as its principal
factors, which both of course rest on psychology again. Psychology,
so we may say, is capable of leading to cumulation phenomena; the
cumulations in history are such that we are able to understand them by
our everyday psychology; and history, so far as it is of scientific
value, consists exclusively of cumulations.
No doubt there is much truth in such a conception of history; but
no doubt also, it puts history in the second rank as compared with
psychology; just as geology stands in the second rank as compared with
chemistry or physics. Geology and human history may lead to generalities
in the form of rules, but these rules are *known* to be not elemental
but only cumulative; and moreover, we know the elements concerned in
them. The elements, therefore, are the real subjects for further studies
in the realm of philosophy, but not the cumulations, not the rules,
which are known to be due to accidental constellations. Of course, the
“single” is the immediate subject of this sort of history, but the
single as such is emphatically pronounced to be insignificant, and the
cumulations and the cumulative rules, though “singles” in a higher sense
of the word, are shown to be anything but elementalities.
Therefore, on a conception of human history such as that of Buckle,
Taine, Lamprecht, and others, we, of course, ought to take an interest
in history, because what is “explained” by historical research touches
all of us most personally every day and every year. But our philosophy,
our view of the world, would remain the same without history as it is
with it. We only study history, and especially the history of our own
civilisation, because it is a field of actuality which directly relates
to ourselves, just as we study for practical purposes the railway
time-tables of our own country, but not of Australia; just as we study
the local time-table in particular.
If the mere *rerum cognoscere causas* is regarded as the criterium of
science, history of Lamprecht’s type of course is a science, for its
explanations rest upon the demonstration of the typical constellations
and of the elemental factor or law from which together the next
constellations are known necessarily to follow. But history of this kind
is not a science in the sense of discovering *den ruhenden Pol in der
Erscheinungen Flucht*.
HUMAN HISTORY NOT AN “EVOLUTION”
Quite another view of history has been maintained by Hegel, if his
explanations about the *Entwicklung des objectiven Geistes* (“the
development of the objective mind”) may be co-ordinated with our
strictly logical categories of the possible aspects of history. But I
believe we are entitled to say that it was a real *evolution* of mankind
that Hegel was thinking of; an evolution regarding mankind as spiritual
beings and having an end, at least ideally. One psychical state was
considered by Hegel to generate the next, not as a mere cumulation
of elemental stages, but in such a way that each of the states would
represent an elementality and an irreducibility in itself; and he
assumed that there was a continuous series of such stages of the mind
through the course of generations. Is there any sufficient reason in
historical facts for such an assumption?
The mind “evolves” itself from error to truth by what might be called
a system of contradictions, according to Hegel, with respect to logic
as well as to morality; the sum of such contradictions becoming smaller
and less complicated with every single step of this evolution. No doubt
there really occurs a process of logical and moral refining, so to say,
in the individual, and no doubt also, the results of this process,
as far as attained, can be handed down to the next generation by the
spoken word or by books. But it is by no means clear, I think, that this
process is of the type of a real evolution towards an end, so far as it
relates to the actual series of generations as such. On the contrary,
it seems to me that we have here simply what we meet everywhere in
history--a sort of cumulation resting upon a psychological basis.
The dissatisfaction that exists at any actual stage of contradiction,
both moral and logical, is one of the psychical factors concerned;
the faculty of reasoning is the other. Now it is a consequence of the
reasoning faculty that the dissatisfaction continually decreases, or
at least changes in such a way that each partial result of the logical
process brings with it the statement of new problems. The number of
such problems may become less, as the logical process advances, and,
indeed, there is an ideal state, both logical and moral, in which there
are no more problems, but only results, though this ideal could hardly
be regarded as attainable by the *human* mind. In the history of those
sciences which are wholly or chiefly of the *a priori* type, this
process of deliverance from contradictions is most advantageously to
be seen. It is obvious in mechanics and thermodynamics, and the theory
of matter is another very good instance. A certain result is reached;
much seems to be gained, but suddenly another group of facts presents
itself, which had been previously unknown or neglected. The first result
has to be changed or enlarged; many problems of the second order arise;
there are contradictions among them, which disappear after a certain
alteration of what was the first fundamental result, and so on. And the
same is true about morality, though the difficulties are much greater
here, as a clear and well-marked standard of measurement of what is good
and what is bad, is wanting, or at least, is not conceded unanimously.
But even here there is a consensus on some matters: one would hardly go
back to slavery again, for instance, and there are still other points
in morality which are claimed as ideals at least by a great majority of
moral thinkers.
But all this is not true “evolution,” and indeed, I doubt if such an
evolution of mankind could be proved at present in the sense in which
Hegel thought it possible. The process of logical and moral deliverance
from contradictions *might* come to an end in *one* individual; at least
that is a logical possibility, or it might come to an end in, say,
six or ten generations. And there is, unfortunately for mankind, no
guarantee that the result will not be lost again and have to be acquired
a second time. All this proves that what Hegel regarded as an evolution
of the race is only a cumulation. There is nothing evolutionary relating
to the generations of mankind as such. At least, nothing is proved about
such an evolution.[165]
[165] On account of the limited size of the earth a certain final stage
of human civilisation might be expected in a future time; but it would
be the size of the earth which determined this end, and not the process
of civilisation itself.
You may call my view pessimistic, and indeed you may be right so far
as the sum total of human beings as such is in question. But, be it
pessimistic or not, we are here moving on scientific ground only, and
have merely to study the probability or improbability of problematic
facts, and with such a view in our mind, we are bound to say that a
true logical and moral evolution of mankind is not at all supported
by known facts. There is a process of logical and moral perfection,
but this process is *not one*, is not “single” in its actuality; it is
not connected with the one and single line of history, but only with a
few generations each time it occurs, or even with one individual, at
least ideally. And this process is not less a process of cumulation
than any other sort of development or so-called “progress” in history
is. Philosophers of the Middle Ages, in fact, sometimes regarded human
history as *one* evolutionary unity, beginning with the Creation and
ending with the Day of Judgment; but every one must agree, I think,
that even under the dogmatic assumptions of orthodoxy history would by
no means *necessarily* be an “evolution.” Even then the paths taken by
different individuals or different branches of the human race on their
way to redemption *can* be regarded as independent lines.
Thus Hegel’s conception of an evolution of mankind, it seems to me,
fails to stand criticism. By emphasising that there are certain lines of
development in history which bring with them a stimulus to perfection,
and that these lines relate to all that is highest in culture, Hegel
certainly rendered the most important service to the theory of history;
but in spite of that he has revealed to us only a special and typical
kind of cumulation process, and nothing like an evolution. We may say
that the very essence of history lies in this sort of cumulation, in
this “pseudo-evolution” as we might say; and if we like to become moral
metaphysicians we might add, that it is for the sake of the possibility
of this sort of cumulation that man lives his earthly life; the Hindoos
say so, indeed, and so do many Christians. But even if we were to depart
from our scientific basis in this way we should not get beyond the realm
of cumulations.
All this, of course, is not to be understood to affirm that there never
*will* be discovered any real evolutionary element in human history--in
the so-called “subconscious” sphere perhaps--but at present we
certainly are ignorant of such an element.
THE PROBLEM OF THE “SINGLE” AS SUCH
If history has failed to appear as a true evolution, and if, on the
other hand, it reveals to us a great sum of different cumulations, some
of very great importance, others of minor importance, what then remains
of the importance of the single historical event in its very singleness?
What importance can the description of this event have with regard to
our scientific aims? We could hardly say at present that it appears to
be of very much importance at all. The historical process as a whole
has proved to be not a real elemental unit, as far as we know, and such
elemental units as there are in it have proved to be of importance only
*for* individual psychology but not *as* history. History has offered
us only instances of what every psychologist knew already from his own
experience, or at least might have known if he had conceived his task in
the widest possible spirit.
But is no other way left by which true history might show its real
importance in spite of all our former analysis? Can history be saved
perhaps to philosophical science by any new sort of reasoning which we
have not yet applied to it here.
As a matter of fact, such new reasoning has been tried, and
Rickert,[166] in particular, has laid much stress upon the point
that natural sciences have to do with generalities, while historical
sciences have to do with the single in its singleness only, and, in
spite of that, are of the highest philosophical importance. He does not
think very highly of so-called “historical laws,” which must be mere
borrowings from psychology or biology, applied to history proper, and
not touching its character as “history.” We agree with these statements
to a considerable extent. But what then about “history proper,” what
about “the single in its very singleness”?
[166] *Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung*,
Tübingen and Leipzig, 1902.
Let us say at first a few words about this term “single” so very often
applied by us. In the ultimate meaning of the word, of course, the
series of actual sensations or “presentations” is the “single” which is
given “historically” to each individual, and therefore to the writer of
history also, and in fact, history as understood by Rickert is based
to a great extent upon this primordial meaning of single “givenness.”
The word “single,” in his opinion, relates to the *actual and true
specification* of any event, or group of events, at a given time and
at a given locality in space, these events possessing an identity of
their own and never being repeated without change of identity. If the
subject-matter of history is defined like this, then there are, indeed,
“Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung” with regard to
history, for natural sciences have nothing to do with the single in such
an understanding of the word.
Rickert says somewhere that history as a real evolution, as one
totality of a higher order, would cease to be proper history: and he
is right. History, in fact, would soon lose the character of specific
attachment to a given space and to a given time, and would lose its
“non-repeatability,” in the logical sense at least, if it were one
*unit* in reality: as soon as it was that, it would have become a
logical generality, an element in nature, so to say, in spite of its
factual singularity. But history is not obliged to become that, Rickert
states; and we may add that history in fact cannot become that, because
it simply proves not to be an evolution as far as we know at present.
But what importance does Rickert attach to his history specified and
non-repeatably single?
History has a logic of its own, he says; the scheme of its logic is not
the syllogism, but the *relation to “values.”* So far as the single
historical facts can be related to values, they are of historical
importance, and in such a way only does history in its proper sense
become important in itself and through itself at the same time. Must
history always lose its historical aspect to become of importance to
human knowledge? That is the question we asked whilst considering the
general logical types of the “evolution” and “cumulation” that arose out
of the analysis of the historical facts of problematic phylogeny. It
now might seem that this question may be answered, and that it may be
answered by a clear and simple “No.” The history of mankind, according
to Rickert, seems to be important in itself, and without borrowing from
any other branch of study. But is his reasoning altogether cogent and
convincing?
Has it really been able to attribute to history in the strictest sense
such an importance for philosophy, for the theory of the universe, “für
die Weltanschauung,” that history proper may in fact be allowed to take
its place beside science proper?
The relation to values is not to include any kind of “Bewertung” of
judgment, Rickert allows. In fact, history of any kind would hardly
satisfy the reader, if moral judgment were its basis. Every reader, of
course, has a moral judgment of his own, but, unfortunately, almost
every reader’s judgment is different from his neighbour’s, and there
is no uniformity of moral principles as there is of geometrical ones.
We shall come back to this point. At present we only state the fact
that indeed moral judgment can never be the foundation of history, and
that Rickert was very right to say so: it is enough to put the names
of Tolstoy and Nietzsche together to understand how devoid of even
the smallest general validity would be a history resting upon moral
principles.
But what then are the “values” of Rickert to which history has to
relate, if moral values in their proper sense have to be excluded? It is
here that his discussions begin to become obscure and unsatisfactory,
and the reason is fairly intelligible. He is trying to prove the
impossible; he wants to put history beside science in its real
philosophical importance, in spite of the fact that all evidence to
establish this is wanting.
These “values,” to which every historical act in its singularity has to
be related in order to become an element of real history, are they after
all nothing but those groups of the products of civilisation which in
fact absorb the interest of men? Is it to groups of cultural phenomena,
such as arts, science, the State, religion, war, economics, and so on,
that “historical” facts have to be related? Yes, as far as I understand
our author, it is simply to these or other even less important groups
of cultural effects--cultural “cumulations,” to apply our term--that a
single action of a man or a group of men must bear some relation in
order to become important historically.
But what does that mean? Is the relation to such “values” to be
regarded as really rendering history equal to the sciences of nature in
philosophical importance?
In the first place, there is no more agreement about such “values” than
there is in the field of morals. Imagine, for instance, a religious
enthusiast or recluse writing history! I fancy there would be very
little mention of warriors and politicians: war and politics would
not be “values” in *any* sense to such a man. And we know that there
are others to whom those products of civilised life rank amongst the
first. Rickert well notes that there is one great objection to his
doctrine--the character of universality[167] is wanting to his history,
or rather to the values forming its basis; for there cannot be, or at
least there actually is not at present, a *consensus omnium* with regard
to these “values.”
[167] The word “universality” to be understood here in quite an
unpretentious quasi-popular meaning, not strictly epistemologically.
I am convinced that Rickert is right in his conception of real “history”
as the knowledge of the single acts of mankind. But this conception
proves just the contrary of what Rickert hoped to prove; for history in
this sense is moulded by the actual products of culture, that is, by
the effects which actually exist as groups of cultural processes, and
it cannot be moulded by anything else; the historian correlates history
with what *interests* him personally.
Here now we have met definitively the ambiguous word: history indeed
is to end in “interest” and in being “interesting.” There is nothing
like a real “value” in any sense underlying history; the word *value*
therefore would better give place to the term “centre of interest”--a
collection of stamps may be such a “centre.” History, then, as the
knowledge of cultural singularities, is “interesting,” and its aspects
change with the interests of the person who writes history: there is no
commonly accepted foundation of history.[168]
[168] To avoid mistakes I wish to say here most emphatically that,
according to Rickert, the method of history is regarded as completely
*free* from subjectivity as soon as its “values” are once *established*.
But this cannot avail to save the theory.
And it follows that history as regarded by Rickert cannot serve as
the preliminary to philosophy. It *may* be[169] of use for personal
edification or for practical life: granting that the “centres of
interest” as referred to are of any real ethical or at least factual
importance. But you may take away from history even the greatest
personalities, and your view of the universe, your philosophy, would
remain the same, except of course so far as these personalities
themselves have contributed to philosophy in any way.
[169] This is a rather optimistic conception of “history.” Personally, I
must confess that even its emotional and practical importance seems to
me to be at least diminished by the retarding effects which all sorts
of “historical” considerations--in science as well as in arts and in
public life--carry with them. All real progress is non-historical--and
its champions almost always have become martyrs: this fact seems not to
recommend history as a means of education, except for persons of a very
strong character.
Now, on the other hand, it is worth noticing that, even if there were
generally accepted “values,” history as the doctrine of singularities
would be deprived of philosophical importance. Its single cases would
then be merely *instances* of certain types of actions and occurrences
which have been proved to be “valuable,” *i.e.* to be centres of
interest, before-hand. Rickert has observed that the relation to
any judgments about moral values would render history unhistorical,
for the generalities to which it is related would be the main thing
in such a case. But he did not notice, as far as I can see, that
history, if related to *any* “values” whatever--if there were any
generally conceded--would become “non-historical” just as well: for the
*generalities* as expressed in the “values” would be the main thing in
this case also. In fact, there is no escape from the dilemma:--either no
general centres of interest, and therefore a mere subjective “history”;
or general “values,” and therefore history a mere collection of
instances.
The “limits of concepts in natural sciences” then are the same as the
limits of *intellectual* concepts in general. For intellectual, *i.e.*
logical, “values” are the only centres of interest that can lay claim
to universality. There are indeed other groups of important concepts,
the ethical ones, but they are outside intellectuality and may enter
philosophy only as problems, not as solutions. Therefore, history in
its true sense, even if related to the ethical group of concepts,
has no bearing on philosophy. Philosophically it remains a sum of
contingencies, in which certain laws of cumulation and certain series of
cumulation may be discovered. But these series and these laws, if taken
scientifically, only offer us instances of psychological elementalities.
They also might be instances of primary ethical states and relations, if
there were such relations of more than a mere subjective and personal
validity, which at present at least seems not to be the case.
CONCLUSIONS ABOUT SYSTEMATICS AND HISTORY IN GENERAL
We have finished our analysis of the history of mankind as the only
instance of an historical biological process that is actually known to
exist and is not only assumed hypothetically.
What we have learnt from this analysis, though certainly important in
itself, has not afforded us any new result for theoretical biology.
The history of mankind is proved to be of philosophical importance,
at present, so far only as it offers instances to the science of
psychology; besides that it may be of value and importance to many
conditions of practical and emotional life.
There is only one science, and only one kind of logic too. “In one sense
the only science”--that was the predicate attached to natural sciences
by Lord Gifford, as you will remember from our first lecture. It is not
without interest to note that at the end of our course of this year,
we find occasion to realise on what a deep insight into logical and
philosophical relations that sentence was grounded.
We now leave the theory of human history, which has been to us nothing
more than a branch of biological phylogeny in general. We have dealt
with it from quite a simple realistic point of view, not burdened by any
epistemology. We have taken psychical states as realities, just as we
have taken as realities all parts of the animal body; and it seems to
me that we were entitled to do so, as it was only history *about* the
actions of men we were dealing with, not their actions themselves. Next
summer we shall begin with studying action as action, and then, in fact,
a well-founded epistemology will be among our first requirements. And
history also will come on the scene once more.
It is the main result of our last chapters, devoted to systematics,
transformism, and human history in particular, that no conclusions
really useful for further philosophical discussion can at present be
gained from these topics; there either is too little actual knowledge,
or there are only combinations of natural elementalities, but no
elementalities of any new kind.
To sum up: we expected that a rational system might be a biological
result of the future, but we could not claim at all to possess such a
system. We said that transformism might be proved one day to be a true
evolution, governed by one immanent principle, which then would have to
be regarded as a new primary factor in nature, but we did not know the
least about that principle.
Human history, on the other hand--that is, the only historical process
concerned with life that is actually known to have occurred--could not
teach us anything of an elemental character, since human history, at
present at least, did not appear to us as a true evolution, but only as
a sum of cumulations, and the singularities of this history, taken by
themselves, could only be of practical or emotional interest.
Thus it is from the study of the living *individual* only, that we
have so far gained elemental principles in biology. The analysis of
individual morphogenesis and of individual inheritance has yielded
us the concept of entelechy as the chief result of the first part of
our lectures. We shall be able to get more proofs of the autonomy of
the individual life in the beginning of the second part; indeed, the
beginning of that part will bring us to a full understanding of what the
living individual is, and what it is not. And then the real philosophy
of life, that is, the philosophy of the individual, will occupy us for
the greater half of our lectures of next summer.
INDEX
Absolute, 5
Acclimatisation, 191
Acquired characters, 217, 276 f.
Adaptation (definition), 166, 171, 185
to changes from without, 172 ff.
functional, 114, 176 ff.
and Lamarckism, 272, 280
mechanical, 177 f.
morphological, 168 ff.
physiological, 184 ff.
primary and secondary, 188 f.
Adaptedness, 186 f.
*Adiantum*, 279
Adventitious, 55, 74, 111, 221
Albumen, 200
Allelomorphs, 231
Amphibious plants, 172 ff.
Annelids, 65, 70, 221
Answering reaction, 181
Anti-bodies, 206 f.
Antitoxins, 207 f.
*A priori*, 6
Aristotle, 144
*Ascaris*, 93
*Aspergillus*, 195
Assimilation, 17
Atrophy, 178
Autonomy of life, 143, 224 f., 324
Babák, 177
Baer, C. E. v., 48 f. 282
Bateson, 229 ff., 238
Bayliss, 204, 212
*Begonia*, 221
Bergson, 305
Berkeley, 6
Berthold, 91
Biogenetisches Grundgesetz, 248
Biology, 8 ff., 15 f.
Blaringhem, 238, 276
Blastoderm, 39
Blastomeres, 36, 59, 61 f., 79
Blastula, 37, 61, 79
Blumenbach, 26
Boirivant, 174
Bonnet, 26
Boveri, 29, 60, 95, 235 f.
Buckle, 308, 310
Bunge, v., 248
Bütschli, 91
Calcium, 97
Calkins, 33
Cambium, 120, 183, 220
Catalysis, 164, 203
Categories, 6 f.
Cause, 99 ff.
Cell, 27 f.
-division, 28 ff., 53, 94
-lineage, 58, 70
-theory, 27 f.
Chemical theory (of morphogenesis), 134 ff.
Chemistry, systematics of, 244.
Child, C. M., 180
Chromatic regulations, 197
Chromatin, 28 f.
Chromosomes, 30, 237
Chun, 66
Classification, 246 f.
*Clavellina*, 129, 154, 162 f.
Cleavage, 35 ff., 53, 58, 60, 63, 71, 92
Colloids, 187
Compensatory process, 112
Complex potencies, 112, 120
Conic sections, 243
Conjugation, 33
Conklin, 86
Contingency, 218, 284 ff. 304
Continuity of germ-plasm, 215, 227
Cope, 273
Correlation (of masses), 93
(of parts), 247
Correns, 228
Crampton, 70 f.
Crayfish, 105
Ctenophores, 66
Cumulation, 301 ff., 308 ff., 314, 317
Cuvier, 247
Darwin, Ch., 260 ff., 271, 283
Darwinism, 260 ff., 271, 283 ff., 293 ff., 304
Davenport, 191, 206
Delage, 32
Descent, theory of, 250 ff.
Description, 12, 50
Detto, 172
Directive stimuli, 102 ff.
Doncaster, 232
Dreyer, 92
*Echinus*, 27, 33 ff., 60 ff., 68, 81, 85, 87,
98, 104, 108, 111, 154, 232, 235
Ectoderm, 41, 81, 122
Egg, 31, 33 f.
Ehrlich, 207 f.
Eimer, 292
Elementary organs, 46 ff.
processes, 46 ff.
Elements of nature, 9
Embryo, 44
frog’s, 59, 65, 67
half, 59, 61, 66 ff.
whole, 61, 67 f.
Endoderm, 41, 81
Entelechy, 143 f., 224 f., 295
Entwickelungsmechanik, 57, 70, 78, 241
Enumeration, 297, 300
Enzymes, 164, 203
Epigenesis, 26, 45, 54, 72, 144, 301
Equifinality (of restitutions), 159 f.
Equipotential, 83
Eschenhagen, 195
Evolutio, 26, 45 f., 54, 59, 61, 64, 72, 144, 205, 301
Evolution, 8, 21, 46, 250, 301, 305, 311 ff., 317
Experience, 7 f., 12, 212
Experiment, 51, 56 f.
“Explaining,” 51, 309
Explicit potency, 84
Fasting, 199 f.
Ferments, 164, 203 f.
Fertilisation, 32 ff.
Fischer, 278
Foges, 107
Form, closed or open, 49
Form, organic, specific, 16 ff., 25, 92, 293 ff.
Forma accidentalis, 293
essentialis, 294 f.
Formative stimuli, 102 ff., 113, 118, 133
Francé, 158, 239
Frédéricq, 196
Frog, embryo of, 59, 65, 67
Fromm, 205
Function (mathematical), 80
Fungi, metabolism of, 201
Gaidukow, 197 f.
Galls, 101
Galton, 228, 238
Gamble and Keeble, 198
Gastrula, 41, 61, 81
Gautier, 239
Geographical distribution, 251 f.
Geometry, solid, 243
Germ-layers, 41, 44, 61
-lineage, 215
-plasm, 52, 215
Gifford, Lord, 1 ff., 322
Godlewski, 105, 155, 235
Goebel, 116
Goethe, 247
Goette, 48, 56, 214
Goltz, 181
Growth, 30, 93 f.
Gruber, 236
Haeckel, 37, 41
Half-embryo, 59, 61, 66 ff.
Haller, A. v., 26
Harmony, 107 ff., 117, 295
Hausmann, 206
Heat production, 193
Hegel, 307, 311 ff.
Herbst, 96 ff., 102, 104 ff., 172, 177, 200, 232, 236
Heredity, 21, 52
Hering, 216 f.
Hertwig, O., 60, 65
Hertwig, R., 32 f., 60, 107
His, 56, 93
History, 2, 14, 21, 250, 257, 297 ff.
of mankind, 306 ff.
Holmes, 180
Hume, 6
Hypertrophy, 112, 114
Hypertypy, 112
Idealism, 5, 7
Immunity, 204 ff.
Implicit potency, 84
Improvement (of morphogenesis), 212
Indifferent cells, 182
Inflammation, 206
Inheritance, 35, 214 ff.
of acquired characters, 217, 275 ff., 290
Irritability, 190 ff.
Jacoby, 207
Jaeger, 214
Jennings, 218
Kammerer, 176, 280
Kant, 6 f.
Kirchhoff, 50
Klebs, 96, 170, 180, 238, 276
Kölliker, 292
Korshinsky, 239
Krašan, 221, 251
Lamarck, 271 f., 291
Lamarckism, 271 f., 284 ff., 293 ff., 304
Lamprecht, 308, 310
Larva, 41 f., 44
Law of nature, 13, 16
Leibniz, 6
Lens (of eye), 105, 221
Liebmann, 256
Life, 9 f., 16, 21
Lillie, R. S., 236
Limits of regulability, 212
Lithium, 99
“Living,” 9, 16
Localisation, 101, 103, 118 ff.
Locke, 6
Loeb, J., 32, 102, 164, 179, 196, 236
Loeb, L., 208
Lyon, 87
MacDougal, 238 f., 276
Machine (definition), 139
Machine-theory of life, 138 ff., 187, 210
Maillard, 196
Manifoldness, 25 f., 30, 45
intensive, 144
Materialism, 283
Materials, transport of, 194
Matter, theory of, 8
Maturation, 31, 87
Mayenburg, v., 195
Means, of morphogenesis, 89 ff., 101, 113, 118, 228, 234
Memory, 216 f.
Mendel, 229 f.
Merrifield, 198
Mesenchyme, 39, 41, 104, 111, 151 f.
Metabolic regulations, 198 f.
Metabolism, 16, 184
of fungi, 201
Metschnikoff, 206
Micromeres, 36, 60
Miehe, 116
Mill, J. S., 57
*Mimosa*, 191
Minkiewicz, 198
Modification, 277
Molluscs, 70 f., 86
Morgan, T. H., 32, 66 f., 95, 107, 114 f., 162, 230
Morphaesthesia, 157
Morphogenesis, 20, 52, 76, 112, 118 f.
Morphology, 12
Movements, organic, 17
Mutations, 237 f., 276, 291
Nägeli, 266, 292
Nathansohn, 196
Natural selection, 261 f., 290
Nature, 5 ff.
Němec, 116
Newport, 57
Newt (regeneration of), 155, 221 f.
Noll, 146, 157 f.
Nomothetic, 14 f.
Normal, 78
Nuclear division, 28 f., 62, 64 f., 72, 235
Nucleus, 28, 35
rôle of nucleus in inheritance, 233 f.
Organ-forming substances, 117
*Oscillariae*, 197
Osmotic pressure, 93, 187, 194 f.
Overton, 196 f.
Oxidation, rôle of, 198 f.
Palaeontology, 252
Parallelism (psycho-physical), 146
Parthenogenesis, 32
Pauly, 146, 217, 273 f.
Pawlow, 204, 210, 212
Pearl, R., 212
Pfeffer, 195, 201
Phagocytosis, 206
Phenomenon, 5 f.
Philosophy, natural, 4
of nature, 4, 7, 9
of the organism, 9, 15
Phylogeny, 255, 291, 297, 304 ff.
Physiology, 12
of development (morphogenesis), 20
*Planaria*, 130, 155, 162 f., 200
Plants, 48 f.
Plato, 2
Pluteus, 42
Poisons, 205 ff.
Pole, 36
Polarity, 106
Potencies, complex, 112, 120
explicit, 84
implicit, 84
primary, 84, 111
prospective, 77 ff., 83, 89, 118, 125, 241
secondary, 84, 110
Poulton, 198
Precipitin, 207 f.
Pressure experiments, 63, 141
Primary potency, 84, 111
purposefulness, 146, 287
regulation, 85, 174, 188
Progress, 305
Pronuclei, 55
Prospective potency, 77 ff., 83, 89, 118, 125, 241
value, 77 f., 80, 122
Protista (Protozoa), 27, 130, 236
Protoplasm, 28, 30
morphogenetic rôle of, 67
Przibram, 112, 248
Rádl, 247
Rauber, 235
Reaction, answering, 181
Reciprocity of harmony, 156 f.
Re-differentiation, 75, 111, 163
Regeneration, 55, 74, 105, 111, 221
super-, 115 f.
Regulation, 68, 73, 85, 111, 165
defined, 166
metabolic, 198 f.
secondary, 85, 165, 188
Reinke, 146
Restitution, 21, 74, 110, 112 ff.
defined, 166
and Darwinism, 267
and Lamarckism, 286
of second order, 158
Retina, 191
Retro-differentiation, 163 f.
Rhumbler, 93
Ribbert, 114
Rickert, 315 ff.
Roux, 26, 48, 55 ff., 66 f., 76, 89, 92 f., 108, 161, 176 f., 241
Rubner, 193
Sachs, 117
Sadebeck, 279
*Salamandra*, 175, 281
Schneider, 146
Schultz, E., 200
Schultze, O., 67
Schwendener, 177
Science, 14, 297
natural, 1 ff.
rational, 12
Sea-urchin, *see* Echinus
Secondary potency, 84, 110
regulation, 85, 165, 188
Secretion, internal, 116, 200
Segmentation, 35
Selective qualities (of tissues), 186
Self-differentiation, 108
Semon, 216 f.
Sex, 107
Single, the, 315 ff.
Skeleton, 40 ff., 44, 47, 92
Spemann, 105
Spermatozoon (spermia), 32 ff.
Splitting (of hybrids), 229 f.
Stahl, 197
Standfuss, 278
Starfish, 44, 81, 122
Starling, E., 116, 204, 212
*Stentor*, 131
Stimuli, directive, 102 ff.
formative, 102 ff., 113, 118, 133
of restitutions, 113 f.
Structure of protoplasm, 66, 69, 72 f. 85, 88
Substance, living, 17
Sumner, 196
Super-regeneration, 115 f.
Surface-tension, 91
Sutton, 230
Symmetry, 39, 68, 70, 72, 89, 98
System, combined types of, 153 ff.
complex, 219 f.
complex-harmonious, 155
equipotential, 120
harmonious-equipotential, 121 ff., 151 f.
mixed-equipotential, 154
morphogenetic, 119 f., 163, 241
Systematics, 14 ff., 21, 243 f., 253, 264, 293, 296
Taine, 308, 310
Theology, natural, 1 ff.
Thomson, J. A., 16
Thymus, 204
Thyroid, 204
Tissue, 38
Toxins, 207 f.
Transformism, 251
Truth, 7
Tschermak, 228
*Tubularia*, 126 ff., 133, 158 ff.
Type, 48, 247 f., 282, 291
“Understanding” (historically), 302
Universality, postulate of, 148 f.
Universe, 5
Univocality, principle of, 161
“Values,” 317 ff.
prospective, 77 f., 80, 122
Variation, 218, 237 f., 276
Variation, fluctuating, contingent, 264 f., 273 f., 282, 290
Vernon, 232, 238
Vitalism, 143, 145 f., 210 f., 224 f., 234, 240 f., 272, 277
Vöchting, 174, 179 f., 182, 221
Volition, acts of, 274
Vries, de, 228, 238 f.
Wallace, 292
Ward, J., 8, 143
Weber, law of, 191
Weinland, 202
Weismann, 33, 52 ff., 58 f., 72, 74 f., 103,
111, 138, 214 f., 237, 277 f.
Weldon, 238
Whole, the, 28, 80, 117
-embryo, 61, 67 f.
Wigand, 255, 266, 292
Wilson, E. B., 27, 65, 70 f., 86 f., 107
Windelband, 13 f.
Winkler, 116, 221
Winterstein, 199
Wolff, C. F., 26
Wolff, G., 105, 146, 255, 266, 287 f.
Wolff, J., 177
Yung, 177
Zeleny, 112, 115, 212
Zur Strassen, 93
THE END
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