i RADICAL FINALISM 45 



mechanism invites us to ignore that ignorance. But the 

 position of vitalism is rendered very difficult by the 

 fact that, in nature, there is neither purely internal 

 finality nor absolutely distinct individuality. The 

 organized elements composing the individual have 

 themselves a certain individuality, and each will claim 

 its vital principle if the individual pretends to have 

 its own. But, on the other hand, the individual itself 

 is not sufficiently independent, not sufficiently cut off 

 from other things, for us to allow it a &quot; vital principle &quot; 

 of its own. An organism such as a higher vertebrate 

 is the most individuated of all organisms ; yet, if we 

 take into account that it is only the development of an 

 ovum forming part of the body of its mother and of 

 a spermatozoon belonging to the body of its father, 

 that the egg (i.e. the ovum fertilized) is a connecting 

 link between the two progenitors since it is common 

 to their two substances, we shall realize that every 

 individual organism, even that of a man, is merely a 

 bud that has sprouted on the combined body of both 

 its parents. Where, then, does the vital principle of 

 the individual begin or end ? Gradually we shall be 

 carried further and further back, up to the individual s 

 remotest ancestors : we shall find him solidary with 

 each of them, solidary with that little mass of proto 

 plasmic jelly which is probably at the root of the 

 genealogical tree of life. Being, to a certain extent, 

 one with this primitive ancestor, he is also solidary 

 with all that descends from the ancestor in divergent 

 directions. In this sense each individual may be 



forgange, Leipzig, 1899 ; Die organischen Regulationen, Leipzig, 1901 ; 

 Natitrbegriffe und Natururteile, Leipzig, 1904 ; Der Vitaltsmus ah Geschichte 

 und ah Lehre, Leipzig, 1905 ; and of Reinke Die Welt ah Tat, Berlin, 

 1899 ; Einleitung in die theoretische Biologie, Berlin, 1901 ; Philosophie dtr 

 Botanik, Leipzig, 1905. 



