184 SOME FINAL CONSIDERATIONS 



phenomena of development. The chief obstacle to this theory 

 was the explanation of the phenomena of regulation, whereby 

 normal embryos are formed in spite of disturbances during 

 development. The machine theory was not able to make this 

 comprehensible. According to Driesch it was not possible to 

 conceive a machine which can be divided into any number of 

 machines of the same structure, or which, after a disturbance 

 of its structure or functioning, returns to the normal situation. 

 Hence he concluded that, apart from the "machine" there was 

 another, non-mechanical factor, which he called ''entelechy". 

 It was this factor that, after disturbances, was able to repair 

 the machine and to make it return to the right track. He 

 opposed this theory, a form of "vitalism", to the "mechanism" 

 of Roux and Weismann. Because of the interference of the 

 "vital force", or entelechy, in the mechanical course of the life 

 phenomena, no purely physico-chemical explanation of these 

 phenomena would be possible. This was the basis of Driesch's 

 conviction that he had proved the "autonomy of life". 



We have already seen (p. 32) that this "proof" by Driesch 

 it not valid. His conclusion that, apart from the machine, the 

 assumption of a special vital force is necessary to explain 

 regulation, is not the only possible conclusion, nor even the 

 first one that comes to mind. The phenomena of regulation can 

 be explained far more easily by the hypothesis that, at the 

 stage in question, there is no machine at all as yet, i.e. that no 

 system of spatial multiplicity has yet been formed. This dis- 

 poses of Driesch's arguments, and his vitalism thereby loses 

 its raison d'etre as an empirically founded theory. 



Now does this mean that "mechanism" is the only correct 

 view on the nature of life, and that, therefore, the organism 

 is nothing else and nothing more than a physico-chemical 

 system that can be explained entirely by the laws of physics 

 and chemistry? In this discussion, we have always strongly 

 emphasised the physical and chemical processes in the develop- 

 ing organism. Hence it might be assumed that the author 

 supports this view. Such, however, is not the case ; and for that 

 reason we must devote our attention for a moment to the 

 relation between biological and physicochemical systems, and to 



