284 E. G. Spaiilding 



INTRODUCTION 



The general purpose of this paper may be stated to be a philo- 

 sophical, or at least a theoretical one. By this it is meant that the 

 motive which has actuated it has arisen from an interest in two 

 questions: first, as to just how different certain phenomena really 

 are which appear to be very different, and, second, as to what the 

 nature of the relation is between certain fundamental physical 

 principles on the one hand and the manifold of concrete things on 

 the other. 



The first of these problems, to a solution of which an answer to 

 the second is necessary, has, of course, a certain historical setting. 

 Almost from time immemorial have discussions taken place as to 

 the question, whether there is or is not a difference between life 

 phenomena on the one hand and inorganic on the other, and if so, 

 what this difference is. These have resulted, in general, in two 

 positions, the one giving a mechanistic, the other a vitalistic school; 

 the latter has, I think, in respect to details, varied from time to 

 time, from period to period, more than has the former. However, 

 it is not my purpose to justify this statement by presenting here 

 the historical evidence for it; for whatever may be said of the vital- 

 istic position and its variations, etc., the admission must be made 

 concerning the mechanistic that, even up to the present, it 

 has been held almost exclusively on the basis of general methodo- 

 logical principles alone. In very few instances has the attempt 

 been successfully made to apply to that which the vitalist selects 

 as distinctive and specific vital phenomena the same experimental 

 methods, and through them the same physico-chemical principles 

 as are used for inorganic phenomena. But even in these cases 

 the admission must be made that such an application has been 

 attended with success only for certain special and particular phe- 

 nomena within the organism, and not for the organism as a whole. 

 This result the vitalist gleefully points to and interprets as mean- 

 ing that thereby there is eliminated only that which is purely 

 physical and that the truly and distinctively vital still remains. 



It is in connection with just this point, then, that the specific, yet 

 philosophical, purpose of this investigation may be stated. It is. 



