332 'Journal of Cotnparafivc Neurology and Psychology. 



investigations, it would be extremely helpful if the author would at 

 least segregate carefully his verifiable, experimental, results from 

 his fictitious schema, if he finds that he cannot bring himself to 

 totally abandon the latter. 



This demand for ''Anschaulichkeit" rather than verifiableness in 

 a scientific account is what has led to an apparent opposition between 

 V. Uexkiill's work and that of some others. Such is the case, I 

 judge, with the dilferences between his work and my own. He pre- 

 sents his work in an "anschaulich" form that is confessedly not 

 verifiable, while I have tried to present strictly what is verifiable, 

 whether immediately ''anschaulich'' or not. The results are bound 

 to be different in the two cases. If my work should be presented 

 by the aid of "anschaulich" fictions, or if v. Uexkiill should present 

 his own results without these fictions, the two accounts would show 

 a most gratifying agreement; this is especially true now that v. 

 Uexkiill has included, in his last Study (31) attempts to show how 

 his machines could be modified by the influences which act on the 

 organism. I have never argued against the existence of machine- 

 like arrangements in organisms. JMy point was merely that these 

 machines are not fixed and final, but that they are continually 

 changed by the environment and by the action of the organism itself.^ 

 Personally I believe that even these changes occur in an essentially 

 machine-like way. 



The demand for "Anschaulichkeit" at all costs is apparently what 

 has led the author to certain extreme views ; to his sc])arating and con- 

 trasting biology and physiology; and to his tendency to fall into vital- 



*Iu his recent paper on Nciv Questions in Ej-i>vriincntul BioJoijn (33) v. 

 Uexkiill, iu presenting a graphic pictnre of my exposition // carried to a 

 logical crtremc, has attribnted to nie extreme views whicli I liave never lield. 

 He says that I "denied tlie existence of tlie I'eflex ; denied tlie existence of 

 any struetio-e in the central nervons system." Tliis statement I am 

 sure is given as part or an "ansclianlich" fictitious schema, not as a state- 

 ment of verifial)le fact ; I have made no sucli denial. Again lie quotes me 

 as saying that "the organism is onlij something happening." when what I 

 said is that "The organism is something happening." The difference is like 

 the difference between black and white. I was trying to insist upon certain 

 facts that had been commonly left out of account. — not trying to substitute 

 these facts for everything else known. 



