THE PROGRAMME 9 



combination of more simple factors of the physical and 

 chemical type. 



It will be my essential endeavour to convince you, in 

 the course of these lectures, that such an aspect of the 

 science of biology is wrong ; that biology is an elemental 

 natural science in the true sense of the word. 



But if biology is an elemental science, then, and only 

 then, it stands in close relations to epistemology and 

 ontology in the same relations to them, indeed, as every 

 natural science does which deals with true elements of nature, 

 and which is willing to abandon naive realism and contribute 

 its share to the whole of human knowledge. 



And, therefore, a philosophical sketch is not out of 

 place at the beginning of lectures on the Philosophy of 

 the Organism. We may be forced, we, indeed, shall be 

 forced, to remain for some time on the ground of realistic 

 empiricism, for biology has to deal with very complicated 

 experiences ; but there will be a moment in our progress 

 when we shall enter the realm of the elemental ontological 

 concepts, and in that very moment our study of life will 

 have become a part of real philosophy. It was not without 

 good reasons, therefore, that I shortly sketched, as a sort 

 of introduction to my lectures, the general point of view 

 which we shall take with regard to philosophical questions, 

 and to questions of the philosophy of nature in particular. 



ON CERTAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF BIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE 



Biology is the science of life. Practically, all of you 

 know what a living being is, and therefore it is not 

 necessary to formulate a definition of life, which, at the 



