APPLICATIONS OF DYNAMIC THEORY TO 

 PHYSIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. 



BY 



THE LATE C. L. HERRICK.^ 



The most strenuous and ingenious efforts of foremost biological 

 investigators have been directed for upwards of fifty years to a 

 search for some explanation of vital phenomena upon a purely 

 structural basis. It has been tacitly assumed on all hands that if 

 v^^e could invent some anatomical unit (biophore, gemmule, plasti- 

 dule, micella, or the like), then it would ipso facto become possible 

 to create a geometry of living matter which would explain heredity 

 and all other problems of vital activity. 



There has been a very general feeling that an appeal to a "vital 

 force" for explanation of such phenomena is at best but begging 

 of the question. Nevertheless, the result of such speculation under 

 the influence of the Daltonian hypothesis of the constitution of 

 matter, including the brilliant work of Weismann and Naegeli, 

 has been so unsatisfactory that the tendency is now apparent to 

 create a neo-vitalism which shall restate the question from a 

 dynamic point of view. 



It is the opinion of the writer that the time is approaching when 

 a biologist with a thorough physical and mathematical equipment 

 may hope to formulate a theory which shall prove as helpful in 



^Rough drafts of this article and the one which immediately follows were found among Dr. Her- 

 rick's papers after his death. They had not been edited for the press and probably were not intended 

 for publication in their present form. But it has seemed best to publish them substantially as they were 

 written, permitting each reader to make the necessary allowances for the defects of composition naturally 

 found in unrevised notes. This article appears to have been written early in 1904; the one on "Imitation 

 and Volition" which follows dates from an earlier time, perhaps four or five years earlier. 



Among Dr. Herrick's papers is a considerable collection of neurological research notes, from which 

 it was hoped that extracts might be taken for publication. We are disappointed to find, however, that 

 this material is all too incompletely written up to admit of publication. The same is unfortunately 

 also true of much of the large collection of MSS. on psychology, ethics and philosophy. Some fragments 

 from this collection, however, it is hoped can be extracted for early publication in the philosophical 

 journals. — Editor. 



