44 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



an organism in certain cases, and that in subordinating 

 the existence of this small organism to the life of the 

 great one we accept the principle of an external finality. 

 The idea of a finality that is always internal is therefore 

 a self-destructive notion. An organism is composed of 

 tissues, each of which lives for itself. The cells of which 

 the tissues are made have also a certain independence. 

 Strictly speaking, if the subordination of all the elements 

 of the individual to the individual itself were complete, 

 we might contend that they are not organisms, reserve 

 the name organism for the individual, and recognise 

 only internal finality. But every one knows that 

 these elements may possess a true autonomy. To say 

 nothing of phagocytes, which push independence to 

 the point of attacking the organism that nourishes 

 them, or of germinal cells, which have their own life 

 alongside the somatic cells, the facts of regeneration 

 are enough : here an element or a group of elements 

 suddenly reveals that, however limited its normal space 

 and function, it can transcend them occasionally ; it 

 may even, in certain cases, be regarded as the equivalent 

 of the whole. 



There lies the stumbling-block of the vitalistic 

 theories. We shall not reproach them, as is ordinarily 

 done, with replying to the question by the question 

 itself: the &quot; vital principle &quot; may indeed not explain 

 much, but it is at least a sort of label affixed to our 

 ignorance, so as to remind us of this occasionally, 1 while 



1 There are really two lines to follow in contemporary neo-vitalism : on 

 the one hand, the assertion that pure mechanism is insufficient, which assumes 

 great authority when made by such scientists as Driesch or Reinke, for 

 example ; and, on the other hand, the hypotheses which this vitalism super 

 poses on mechanism (the &quot; entelechies &quot; of Driesch, and the &quot; dominants &quot; of 

 Reinke, etc.). Of these two parts, the former is perhaps the more interesting 

 See the admirable studies of Driesch Die Localisation morphogenetischer 



