A biologist's view of whitehead's philosophy 



points. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is not generally regarded as having 

 contributed much to theoretical biology, yet surely his essay The 

 Theory of Life, published in 1848, was more advanced than any 

 other thought at the time, and than a great deal since. Coleridge 

 wrote : 



"I define life as the principle of individuation, or the power 

 which unites a given all into a whole that is presupposed by its 

 parts. The link that combines the two, and acts throughout 

 both, will, of course, be defined by this tendency to individuation. 

 Thus, from its utmost latency, in w^hich life is one widi the 

 elementary powers of mechanism ... to its highest 'manifesta- 

 tion . . . there is an ascending series of intermediate classes, and 



of analogous gradations in each class In the lowest forms 



of the vegetable and animal world we perceive totality dawning 

 into individuation, while in man, as the highest of the class, 

 the individuality is not only perfected in its corporeal sense, 

 but begins a new series beyond the appropriate limits of 

 physiology."-'- 



It is curious to think that Coleridge was as unconscious as Aristode 

 (who also recognised a "ladder of beings") of the evolutionary suc- 

 cession which has coloured all our thought on these subjects since the 

 middle of the last century. 



More important, some decades later, was the work of the London 

 philosopher, Karl Marx,^ and the Manchester business man, Frederick 

 Engels.3 The views of the latter on scientific theory have in recent 

 times become generally recognised as having been far in advance of 

 his age. The author would disclaim any competence for presenting 

 the contributions of these great thinkers as they deserve, but there 

 are numerous handbooks which may be consulted, a process which 

 is in this case especially necessary as the views of these men on political 

 subjects, then unorthodox, caused them to be somewhat boycotted 

 in academic circles.* Marx and Engels were, of course, profoundly 

 influenced by Hegel, just as Coleridge had been. But whereas he 



1 S. T. Coleridge, Theory of Life (ist edn., 1848, usual edn., London, 1885). 



2 See esoecially The German Ideology and Theses on Feuerbach. ^. , • 



3 See especially Anti-Dtihring; Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, and the Dialectics 



* sle'eg T. A. Jackson, Dialectics, the logic of marxism, 1936; D. Guest, Textbook 

 of dialectical materialism, 1939; R- Maublanc, La Philosophie du marxisme et V enseignement 

 officiel, 1936; J. Lewis, Introduction to Philosophy, 1937- 



187 



