EXPERIMENTAL MORPHOGENESIS 145 



Some General Remarks on Vitalism 



We now shall leave entelechy where it stands : next 

 summer we shall turn back to it and shall make its full 

 logical and ontological analysis our chief study. At present 

 we are satisfied with having proved its existence in nature, 

 with having laid some of the foundations of a doctrine to be 

 based upon it. I hope that these foundations will evince 

 themselves strong : that is all-important. 1 It indeed has 

 been the fault of all vitalism in the past that it rested on 

 weak foundations. Therefore the discussion of the basis 

 underlying our doctrine of the autonomy of life is to occupy 

 us still a considerable time. We shall devote to it two 

 more of this year's lectures and three of the next ; we shall 

 examine all sorts of phenomena of life in order to find out 

 if there are any further proofs of vitalism, independent 

 perhaps, of what we way call our first proof, which is based 

 upon the analysis of the differentiation of harmonious-equi- 

 potential systems. We shall find some more independent 

 proofs ; and besides that we shall find many kinds of 

 phenomena upon which future times perhaps may erect 

 more of such independent proofs. 



For we shall be chary of bestowing the name " proof ' 

 except on what is a proof indeed, of course according to our 

 critical conviction. Vitalistic views in biology have arisen 



1 My "first proof of vitalism" was first developed in the paper, "Die 

 Localisation morphogenetischer Vorgange," Leipzig, 1899. (See additional 

 remarks in Organische Regulationem, Leipzig, 1901, and in Archiv fur 

 Entwickelungsmcchanik, 14, 1902.) I cannot admit that any really serious 

 objection has been brought forward against it. (See my articles in Biologisches 

 Centralblatt, 22, 23, 27, and in Ergebnisse d. Anat. u. Entwickelungsgesch. 

 11, 14.) An historical sketch of vitalism will be found in my book, Der 

 Vilalismus als Geschichte und als Lehre, Leipzig, 1905. 



10 



