A biologist's view of whitehead's philosophy 



cells of the very young organism are not strictly determined as to 

 their fate in the finished product, and this determination comes 

 about as development goes on, partly at least through the action of 

 chemical substances, about which we already know a good deal.^ 

 But the important point is that these chemical substances (the Evo- 

 cators and Organisers) do not act at random, but faithfully in accord- 

 ance with that plan of the body which is decreed by the characters 

 of the species, whether embodied in the nuclear chromosomes or 

 perhaps in the cytoplasm of the egg, a plan the field properties of 

 which have earned for it the name of Individuation Field. Hence the 

 fate of a given monad, protein molecule, atomic group, or what 

 have you, in the original egg, is a function of its position in the 

 whole. And thus we have a typical instance of the way in which the 

 concept of simple location is hopelessly inadequate to cope with the 

 facts arising in biological studies. The reader may be referred to 

 Whitehead's own writings for an account of why it is inadequate in 

 physics also, but others have made similar approaches, for example 

 Wo. Kohler, starting from psychology, with his theory of physical 

 ''Gestalten."2 According to Whitehead, all the things in the world 

 are to be conceived of as modifications of conditions within space- 

 time, extending throughout its whole range, but having a central 

 focal region, which is in common speech "where the thing is." In 

 topographic analogy, such as thermodynamicians use, the influence of 

 the thing grades off past successive contours, like the slopes of Fuji- 

 yama, in every direction. The connection of this idea with the sort 

 of fact which we are always meeting in biology, namely phenomena 

 of field character, is obvious, and to-day the concept of field is equally 

 widespread and necessary in biology as in physics. 



To this may be added the following. The abstraction of classical 

 seventeenth-century science from the life sciences had the effect, 

 wrote Whitehead,^ of bringing it about that dynamics, physics, and 

 chemistry were the disciplines which guided the gradual transition 



. philosopher, S. Alexander (in his Space, Time and Deity, vol. ii, p. 65). After discussing 

 the phenomena of pluripotence in embryonic development, he says, "Is there anything 

 in these facts which is inexplicable when the initial constellation is considered ? Instead 

 of straightway postulating an entelechy to act as a guide, it would seem to me more 

 reasonable to' note that a given stage of material complexity is characterised by sucli 

 and such special features, and that these are part and parcel of the principle or plan of 

 the new order of complex." Determination is an empirical concept congruent with the 

 facts of embryonic development. 



1 Cf. my Biochemistry and Morphogenesis (Cambridge, 1942). 



2 Wo. Kohler, Die physische Gestalten, 1920. ^ S & MW, p. 6c: 



197 



