BIONOMICS 247 



that something besides mere physico-chemical factors is here 

 concerned, and I agree with Principal Lloyd Morgan in his 

 remarks on the correlation of external and internal relations in 

 his Spencer Lecture (1913). This is what he has to say: 



There occurs let us say, an external event in the physical world, 

 such as the motion of a billiard-ball across the table and, when, during 

 its progress, this stimulates the retina, there is an internal physico- 

 chemical process which runs its course in retina, optic nerves, and the 

 central nervous system. We may regard these two processes external 

 and internal as so far of like physical order. With adequate know- 

 ledge the two could in some measure be serially correlated as such. But 

 the physico-chemical processes in the organism are not only of this 

 physical type. They are vital or physiological as well. And this 

 makes a real difference. Of course this statement is open to question. 

 But I, for one, believe that there are specific relations present in 

 physiological processes qua vital, other than those of the 

 physico-chemical type relations which are effective and which require 

 a distinctive name. So far I am a vitalist. At some stage of evolution 

 these new modes of effective relatedness came into being, whereas in the 

 fire-mist and for long afterwards they were not in being. None the less 

 when they did actually come into being, under conditions of which we 

 are at present ignorant though not so ignorant as we were they were 

 dependent upon and, for our interpretation, they logically imply, the 

 physico-chemical relations which are also present. In any case they 

 further imply, through heredity-relatedness, the evolutionary history 

 of the organism in which they obtain. This so-called historical element 

 in biology no doubt involves a characteristic vital relationship. But, 

 I take it, the physico-chemical constitution of any inorganic compound, 

 and of any molecule therein, has also its history has relationship to 

 past occurrences within its type, which have helped to make it what it 

 is. Still, in the organism the relation to past happenings has a quite 

 distinctive form which we deal with in terms of heredity. 



Evidently, as Prof. Lloyd Morgan recognises, the whole 

 matter is very complex, and it is as difficult to say whether a 

 purely vitalistic impulse or a physico-chemical first started 

 life, as it is difficult to determine which was first, the egg or 

 the hen. It may be that the very first impulse was a dual 

 impulse in which both psychical and mechanical forces were 

 blended. It does not, however, affect our bio-economic argu- 

 ment in the least, whether the mechanistic or vitalistic view 



