THE GENESIS OF LIVING ORGANISMS 231 



affects the material directly, and requires no impulses for the 

 attainment of its object. Like all material factors, it is em- 

 ployed by the plan to form framework functioning in accord- 

 ance with plan. Though we may have established the purely 

 causal running of a process, yet conformity with plan is not 

 thereby excluded, for, in what it does, the completed frame- 

 work, working in accordance with plan, does not show the 

 slightest departure from causality. 



Only when the framework suffers injury, does it become 

 apparent whether, in addition to causality, there is a plan 

 at work. 



Two fundamental questions now arise. In addition to 

 the plan discovered by biological methods that works through 

 the help of impulses and genes, is there another plan which 

 is capable of affecting the material directly in the way that 

 causality affects it ? If we are going to call " subjective " 

 the plan that works through the impulses, the question will 

 run thus, " Is there a plan in the world other than the / 

 biological, or does all conformity with plan arise from 

 subjects ? " 



I think that some such conformity with plan, independent 

 of subjects, rises before the mental vision of many scientific 

 men when they speak of a new, formative energy. An idea 

 of the kind seems to lie at the basis even of Loeb's theory of 

 tropisms. From this point of view, we might assume that the 

 entire world consists of nothing but material properties. But, 

 in addition to their chemical affinities, these properties would 

 also have special biological affinities. From this could be 

 deduced a sort of biologico-chemical law of formation for all 

 manner of frameworks constructed in accordance with plan. 

 This law would then mean a direct working of plan upon 

 material. 



At the present day it is impossible to decide whether 

 there is a shaping law of this kind. But one thing is certain ; 



