376 LIGHT AND TEE BEHAVIOR OF ORGANISMS 



this. Referring to genesis, Driesch asserts that an egg 

 must be considered as a whole, a unit, an entity, an individ- 

 ual, but during every step In the process of development It 

 Is still a whole, an Individual, although It may have been 

 divided many thousands of times. Now he asks (Vol. I, 

 p. 225), " Can you Imagine a very complicated machine, 

 differing In the three dimensions of space, to be divided 

 hundreds and hundreds of times and In spite of that to 

 remain always the same whole ? " and adds (p. 226), '' We 

 say It Is a mere absurdity to assume that a complicated 

 machine, typically different In the three dimensions of 

 space, could be divided many many times, and in spite 

 of that always be the whole: therefore there cannot exist 

 any sort of machine as the starting-point and basis of 

 development." Acting, too, he affirms, cannot be ex- 

 plained by the application of physico-chemical principles 

 alone; and It is this part of his analysis which concerns us 

 in particular. " In acting," he says (Vol. II, p. 69), " there 

 may be no change in the specificity of the reaction when the 

 stimulus is altered fundamentally, and again, there may 

 be the most fundamental difference In the reaction when 

 there is almost no change in the stimulus." In other 

 words, each constituent of the effect does not depend upon 

 each constituent of the stimulus, '' but one whole depends 

 on the other whole, both ' wholes ' being conceivable In 

 a logical sense exclusively " (p. 81). The author supports 

 his contention still further by referring to the historical 

 basis of acting. He says (p. 81), " Firstly, the effects that 

 are given off In acting occur In a field of natural events very 

 different from that of the stimuli received historically: 

 sensations belong to one, movements to another field. 

 Secondly, the historical basis serves only as a general 

 reservoir of faculties, the specific combinations of the 

 stimuli received historically being preserved by no means 

 in their specificity, but being resolvable into elements; these 

 elements then — transferred, however, to another sphere 

 of happening — are rearranged into other specificities 



