Implications of the Theories of Nerve Action 201 



with the greatest possible clarity is the error, the fallacy, not 

 of objective fact but of reasoning. Stated in general terms, 

 the fallacy consists in the tacit assumption that the indis- 

 pensability and adequacy of physico-chemical elements to 

 explain organic behavior are of a sort that exclude the in- 

 dispensability and adequacy of "structures," as sense or- 

 gans and muscles, from the explanation of the same phe- 

 nomena. 



To go into the epistemological and logical necessities 

 involved in the situation with which we are here confronted 

 is entirely beyond the scope of this volume. However, in 

 the interest not so much of Truth in the abstract as of 

 healthy, wholesome, useful science, biologists will have to 

 cease employing such deprecatory epithets as "anthropo- 

 morphism," "metaphysics," "rhetoric" and the like to gain 

 for themselves a sense of security in the use of language and 

 reasoning which can not endure for an hour the searchlight 

 of really careful thinking and expression. 



To focus the general statement of the fallacy on the par- 

 ticular matter in hand, one must see that both factually 

 and epistemologically the organs and other morphological 

 and general functional elements, or factors found by the 

 analysis of the organism, are "fundamental" or "ultimate" 

 for the phenomena to be explained by exactly the same cri- 

 teria that the physico-chemical elements are fundamental 

 or ultimate. 



A reflex act or a trophism can no more be intelligibly 

 expressed or understood or conceived as an objective fact 

 without sense organs, muscles, etc., than without physico- 

 chemical substances. If one questions the truth of this af- 

 firmation let him test the matter by trying to express a re- 

 flex act in the terms of the physico-chemical elements known 

 from analysis to be "behind" such an act. To begin with, he 

 finds it necessary to fix upon some particular reflex act, 

 scratch-reflex, perhaps. Such particular act must be taken 



