24 THE THEORY OF [pt. 



case and death in another. These differences, according to him, all 

 depended on life itself altering the results, though the experimental 

 conditions were the same, but this could not happen, he thought, 

 in the phenomena of inert bodies, where life does not enter. Opposi- 

 tion to these ideas was prompt and general in the Philomathic 

 Society. Everyone pointed out to Gerdy that his opinions were 

 nothing less than a denial of biological science, but he would not 

 give up his ideas and entrenched himself behind the word 'vitality'. 

 He could not be made to understand that it was only a word, devoid 

 of meaning and corresponding to nothing, and that saying that some- 

 thing was due to vitality amounted to calling it unknown." The 

 only difference between Driesch and Gerdy seems to be that Driesch's 

 arguments rested on a more solid basis of fact, and were put forward 

 with greater eloquence. 



It is worth while to study the thought of Claude Bernard more 

 closely. Bernard was so subtle a thinker that it has always been 

 difficult to classify him with any of the main currents of biological 

 thought, but the following passage seems to me to sum up as well as 

 any other the main shape of his ideas. "When a chicken develops in 

 an egg", said he, "the formation of the animal body as a grouping of 

 chemical elements is not what essentially distinguishes the vital force. 

 This grouping takes place only according to laws which govern the 

 physico-chemical properties of matter ; but the guiding idea of the 

 vital evolution is essentially of the domain of life and belongs neither 

 to chemistry nor to physics nor to anything else. In every living germ is 

 a creative idea which develops and exhibits itself through organisation. 

 As long as a living being persists it remains under the influence of 

 this same creative vital force, and death comes when it can no longer 

 express itself; here, as everywhere, everything is derived from the idea 

 which alone creates and guides ; physico-chemical means of expres- 

 sion are common to all natural phenomena and remain mingled 

 pell-mell, like the letters of the alphabet in a box, till a force goes to 

 fetch them to express the most varied thoughts and mechanisms. This 

 same vital idea preserves beings by reconstructing the vital parts 

 disorganised by exercise or destroyed by accident or disease. To the 

 physico-chemical conditions of this primal development, then, we 

 must always refer our explanation of life, whether in the normal or 

 pathological state." Here Bernard seems to recognise the significance 

 of universal teleology, for he says, "here, as everywhere, everything 



