] CHARLES OTIS WHITMAN 
in an egg does not lie in its mode of cleavage, but in subtile form- 
ative processes. The plastic forces mould the germ-mass 
regardless of the way it is cut up into cells.” 
At the same time he showed clear insight into the results of the 
experimental embryologists. In this same address he says, 
“The formation of a whole from a part . . . . no more 
disproves the existence of a definite organization in the case of the 
egg than in the case of hydra.’’ And in the preface to the volume 
of Biological Lectures for 1894 he strongly contests the view that 
“developmental mechanics” has explained or can explain 
vital phenomena, without reference to the historical develop- 
ment of the organism. As to mechanism and vitalism he says, 
“There is no warrant for the assertion that life is something differ- 
ent from, and independent of, matter and energy. That is the 
mistake of vitalism. On the other hand there is no warrant in 
decomposition for identifying dead mechanism with living 
mechanism.” ‘‘The ultimate mystery is beyond the reach of 
both mechanism and vitalism; let pretensions be dropped and 
approximation to truth will be closer on both sides.”’ 
The influence of Professor Whitman’s work on the science of 
embryology and on the scientific and philosophical problems con- 
nected with development was profound. His work was careful, 
critical, consistent. He reached conclusions only after most 
painstaking observations and mature deliberation, and when he 
had once made up his mind he was not easily moved. Others 
might be ‘‘tossed about by every wind of doctrine,” but he stood 
unmoved and unshaken, having confidence in his own observa- 
tions and reflections and refusing to doubt his conclusions until 
he himself had seen and felt equally strong evidence against 
them. Asa result of this he was unusually stable and consistent, 
and while his later work shows that his ideas were constantly 
enlarging with new evidence, yet there was little in his earlier 
work which needed correction. 
Professor Whitman’s work on the early development of the tele- 
ost egg, published with Alexander Agassiz (1884 and 1889), is a 
fine example of careful discriminating embryological investiga- 
tion. The cleavage especially was studied with great care, and 
