MODERN BIOLOGY 385 



only maintained that the life-process was inexplicable by chemical and 

 physical methods. Miiller, on the other hand, definitely declares that there 

 is a special "organic creative force" that is the essential condition of life. 

 He points out the resemblance between his theory and that of Stahl, but 

 with this difference, that Stahl considered the conscious soul to be the 

 condition of life, whereas Miiller holds that the consciousness is something 

 apart from the organic creative force; the latter belongs to all living beings, 

 while the consciousness, "which does not create any organic products, but 

 only ideas," is found only in the higher animals. "This rational creative 

 force manifests itself in each animal in accordance with a strict law, which 

 the nature of every animal requires"; it exists in the embryo before its parts 

 are present and it produces these parts. "Der Keim ist das Ganze, Potentia; 

 bet der Entwicklung des Keimes entstehen die integrierenden Teile desselben Actu." 

 Here, apparently, Aristoteleanism recurs word for word, and it is still more 

 conspicuous in Miiller's constant declaration that the organization of the 

 living being is governed by finality. "Die organischen Kdrper unterscheiden sich 

 nicht bloss von den unorganischen dutch die Art ibrer Zusammensetzung aus Elemen- 

 ten, sondern die bestdndige Tdtigkeit, welche in der lebenden organischen Maferie 

 u'irkf, schafft auch in den Geset^en eines vernunffige?z Planes mit Ztveckmdssigkeit, 

 indem die Teile xu^n Zwecke eines Ganzen angeordnet tverden, und dies ist gerade, 

 was den Organismus auszeichnet ." This gives the gist of Miiller's biological 

 views; among the details it may further be pointed out that he emphatically 

 maintained the immutability of both species and genera, as well as of other 

 higher systematical categories in the animal and vegetable kingdom; and 

 again that he holds the same epigenesis theory as C. F. Wolff, whom he 

 greatly admired, that he believes with Rudolphi that intestinal worms are 

 produced by spontaneous generation, and lastly that he considers the spon- 

 taneous generation of the Infusoria can be neither proved nor disproved. 



His vitalisffi 

 It need hardly be specially pointed out that this organic creative force is a 

 product of natural-philosophical thought; likewise, it will at once be realized 

 that it in no way helps to explain the course and connexion of the vital 

 functions. We might apply to it Galileo's above-quoted words on the 

 omnipotence of God as a ground for natural phenomena: that one can derive 

 from it anything whatsoever because it is based on no kind of necessity. And 

 as a characteristic consequence of this mode of thought results the idea of 

 finality as a law governing organic evolution. Miiller's strong insistence upon 

 the complete finality of the organisms is no doubt connected with his often 

 expressed religious respect for nature, but he arrives at no explanation of 

 nature in that direction; science indeed has always striven to give to its 

 conclusions the character of laws of necessity, but where the domination of 

 necessity is established, there is no room for finality; no one has commended 



