FACTORS IN ONTOGENY 247 



to explain a particularly hard problem, one has simply removed 

 his problem from the realm of scientific investigation. It is 

 no longer a problem. It is explained that is, it is explained 

 for whoever accepts the vitalistic assumption. 



The varying behavior of things in the inorganic world, the 

 functions and capacities of these things, depend on the varying 

 physical and chemical make-up of these things acted upon by 

 the various kinds of energy, such as heat, motion, electricity, 

 and what not, which we are more or less familiar with as a part 

 of the physicochemical world. Varying energy acting upon, 

 or better, through varying structure: this is the causomechanical 

 explanation of all the phenomena in the inorganic world. 

 Should we not in any open-minded consideration of the phe- 

 nomena in the organic world strongly incline to hold to this 

 same explanation until it is definitely proved incompetent, 

 untenable? Answering the question with a hearty "Yes," 

 the mechanists look first of all in their study and analysis of 

 the so-called vital phenomena to the matter of structure of 

 the vital masses and to the play of energy through the masses, 

 to discover, if possible, a tangible clew to the " mysteries " of 

 the life process. In the study of development, then, we strive 

 first to see and to understand the intimate structure of the 

 germ plasm, this protoplasmic stuff with its wondrous endow- 

 ment of potentiality. 



In Chapter III we have already stated summarily what is 

 known of the chemical and physical make-up of protoplasm. 

 What is actually known, by chemical analysis and earnest 

 microscopic peering, of this structural make-up is wholly in- 

 sufficient to serve as a satisfactory basis of any causomechani- 

 cal explanation of protoplasmic properties. Although some 

 of the simpler capacities of protoplasm, as its motion, its 

 taking up of outside substances (feeding), etc., have been to 

 some degree explained by seeing in them direct physicochem- 

 ical reactions to external stimuli or conditions, practically 

 nothing has been really accomplished as yet toward a mechani- 

 cal explanation of such more complex or unusual capacities 

 as irritability, assimilation, and reproduction. This last func- 

 tion of protoplasm is in a way its most apparently hope- 

 lessly inexplicable property. And this is especially so when 

 the reproduction is of the sort peculiar to the germinal proto- 

 plasm; that is, where the reproducing protoplasmic mass does 



