THE PROGRAMME 15 



GENERAL PLAN OF THESE LECTURES 



Turning now to a sort of short outline of what is to be 

 discussed in the whole of our future lectures, this summer 

 and next, it seems clear, without further analysis, that 

 biology as a science has its nomothetic and its systematic 

 part also ; respiration and assimilation, for instance, have 

 proved to be types of natural laws among living phenomena, 

 and that there is a " system ' of animals and plants is 

 too commonly known to require further explanation here. 

 Therefore we might study first biological laws, and after 

 that biological systematics, and in the third place perhaps 

 biological history. But that would hardly correspond to 

 the philosophical aims of our lectures : our chief object is 

 not biology as a regular science, as treated in text-books 

 and in ordinary university lectures ; our chief object is the 

 Philosophy of the Organism, as aided and supported by 

 scientific biology. Therefore a general acquaintance with 

 biology must be assumed in these lectures, and the biological 

 materials must be arranged according to their bearing on 

 further, that is on philosophical, analysis. 



That will be done, not, of course, to the extent of my 

 regarding every one of my audience as a competent biologist : 

 on the contrary, I shall explain most fully all points of 

 biology proper, and even of the most simple and descriptive 

 kind of biology, which serve as bases for philosophical 

 -analysis. But I shall do so only if they indeed do serve 

 as such bases. All our biology will be not for its own 

 sake, but for the sake of philosophy. 



Whilst regarding the whole of the biological material 



