16 The Unity of the Organism 



ception that will be defended in this work than either of the 

 other biologists whose view we are now considering, even 

 though he Is far from admitting the organism to full stand- 

 ing in his conceptions. "Undoubtedly," he says, "it [the 

 principle of unity] is capable of further analysis, and it 

 must ultimately be derived from particular relations and 

 properties of material particles" ;^*' and the conceptual form 

 which the material particles, by virtue of their "particular 

 relations and properties" assumes in Lillie's mind is the 

 "formative stuffs" which, since the theory of such sub- 

 stances was first given definiteness and plausibility by Juhus 

 Sachs, have figured largely in speculative biology. "The 

 theory of formative stuffs," Lillie writes, "does away with 

 any 'determinant' hypothesis. 'Characters' are not due to 

 'unfolding' of the 'potencies' of 'detemiinants' but are re- 

 sults of morphogenic reactions between two or more forma- 

 tive stuffs. The 'character' need no more be preformed in 

 the reagents (formative stuffs) in the case of a morphogenic 

 than in the case of a chemical reaction." ^^ 



This interesting, and up to a certain point entirely ac- 

 ceptable, language of Lillie's will be examined more closely 

 in another connection. Enough for now to say dogmatically 

 that the author's "formative stuffs" is only another elemen- 

 talist refuge and so no more satisfactory than is the cellular 

 refuge which he himself abandons, or than are any of the 

 innumerable other refuges to which innumerable other ele- 

 mentalists have fled. 



The historic background for our enterprise will be com- 

 pleted when we have pointed out how it is faring with these 

 two theories at present. This can be done with great brev- 

 ity since what we find will be exactly what will most occupy 

 us when we come to the substantive rather than the historic 

 part of our task, when the superstructure rather than the 

 foundation is at hand. 



The organismal line of descent which our cursory sur- 



