438 Mast, L. J. Henderson on "The Fitness of the Environment' 1 . 



in physical science, which no less than biological science appears 

 to manifest teleology; it must therefore suffice in biology". Thus 

 our author holds that he has relegated both vitalism and teleology 

 to the rubbish heap and has established mechanism in their place. 

 He maintains however that mechanism will not account for all, 

 so he creates what he calls "a new teleology", a factor which 

 is endowed with the very significant business of giving to energy 

 and matter their original properties and other characteristics that 

 may prove to be necessary. "Our new teleology," he says (p. 308), 

 "cannot have originated in or through mechanism, but it is a 

 necessary and preestablished associate of mechanism. Matter and 

 energy have an original property, assuredly not by chance, which 

 organizes the universe in space and time . . . Given the universe, 

 life, and the tendency, mechanism is inductively proved sufficient 

 to account for all phenomena". 



After having carefully read and re-read this part, the reviewer 

 leaves it with a feeling that he has been wandering in a circle, 

 that at the close he is precisely where he was in the beginning. 

 This may be due largely to limitation on the part of the reviewer 

 or to the inherent obscurity of the subject-matter treated. But, in 

 my opinion, there are other important factors involved here. The 

 terms vitalism, mechanism, teleology, and the like, are at present 

 used in so many different senses that it seems evident that every 

 discussion bearing on them without a thoro-going exposition of 

 precisely what ideas are intended to be conveyed by their use, is 

 futile. It is the lack of such an exposition in the book before us 

 that makes it quite impossible to get more than a superficial idea 

 of what the author claims to have established regarding them. 

 What is the essence of the vitalism and the teleology that have 

 been banished and of the mechanism that has been substituted in 

 their place? What does the author mean when he says" physical 

 science needs no teleology to explain its phenomena and processes"? 

 What sort of vitalism is it that is eliminated by the necessary 

 postulation of "extraphysical influences" to account for fitness in 

 the inorganic realm? He says (p. 308), as quoted above, that 

 matter and energy organise the universe, but he also says that 

 given the universe, life, and the tendency, mechanism is sufficient 

 to account for all phenomena, implying that life is not part of 

 the universe which is organised by matter and energy, that it is 

 some extraneous entity. Must it not be concluded from this 

 statement that there is a profound difference between animate and 

 inanimate systems? And might not this be considered as the very 

 essence of a vitalism ? 



The biological atmosphere is nowadays charged nearly to 

 saturation with the terms referred to above, and signs of the 



