Introductory 23 



point has already advanced so far on secure observational 

 and experimental and inductive foundations, that the scien- 

 tific uselessness if not folly of such elementalistic systems 

 will deter working biologists from spending their time on 

 them. 



The barest mention of some of the most important lines 

 of organismal advance, just referred to, will fittingly close 

 tliis historical sketch. 



From the standpoint of biology in the narrowest sense, 

 no researches are yielding more of organismal significance 

 than are those on internal secretions or hormones, or "chem- 

 ical messengers" as they have been called by Starling, one 

 of the foremost investigators of these substances. Two 

 chapters of the constructive part of this work are devoted 

 to this subject. 



Another province in which research is yielding results 

 scarcely if at all secondary in significance to those coming 

 from the biochemical realm just mentioned, is that on the 

 integrating office of the nervous system. The fundamental 

 and extensive work of Sherrington is of prime importance 

 here. But a genuinely organismal aspect is recognized in 

 the tropism theor}^ of Jacques Loeb, which turns out to be 

 almost as important for our general enterprise as the unify- 

 ing character of the nervous system. 



Finally, the realm of the indubitably psychic life of or- 

 ganisms, particularly of man, is found to contain much of 

 the utmost usefulness to the organismal conception. Espe- 

 cially to be mentioned in this connection is the doctrine 

 of Apperception as understood and worked out by Wundt, 

 and its relation to the tropism theory, this relation having 

 apparently been first pointed out by Royce. A discussion 

 prominently involving this relation w^ill conclude the con- 

 structive part of the volume. 



