94 BIOLOGY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 



all instinctive social activity, the individual 

 organism shows itself to be more than a mere 

 individual : it belongs to a wider organic 

 whole. Death is certainly not the mere 

 mechanical wearing out of the organic 

 machine : for the organism, as we have 

 already seen, is no machine. Not only in 

 reproducing itself as a whole, but also in the 

 metabolic processes by which it is changing 

 its substance at every moment, does it flout 

 such a conception. So far as we can at 

 present understand the matter, the physiology 

 of death, and that of reproductive and social 

 activity in all their wide ramifications, belong 

 to the physiology of the species. The indi 

 vidual organism, like the individual cell in 

 a complex organism, belongs to a wider 

 organic whole, apart from which much of its 

 life is unintelligible. 



It may be argued that in postulating the 

 existence of such a thing as a living organism 

 as a specific entity we are abandoning all 

 attempt at explanation. We are certainly 

 abandoning the attempt at causal explana 

 tion ; but in doing so we are only abandoning 

 the philosophical ideas which have already 



