PERSONALITY 



and indeed quite sufficient. It is also the 

 account which the mechanistic theory of life 

 aims at giving in a complete form. More 

 over, we cannot at present give any better 

 account of much which we find in the man. 

 /2 We can next attempt to regard the man 



as a living organism, blindly maintaining its 

 structure and activity and fulfilling its 

 organic function in relation to the species. 

 This is the point of view of biology, freed 

 from the trammels of the mechanistic theory 

 of life ; and this mode of regarding the man 

 takes into account a great deal of what was 

 entirely left out of account in the physical 

 and chemical presentation of him. The 

 purely biological account is evidently of 

 enormous use, particularly in relation to 

 medicine and social and economic activity. 



Lastly we can attempt to regard the man 

 as a person, in conscious relation through 

 perception and volition to his environment. 

 This mode of regarding him includes all 

 that was left out in the previous modes. 

 The man as a person is thus no abstraction 

 from reality, like the man as a mere form, 

 or as an arrangement of material, or as a 



