PHYSIOLOGICAL 449 



in a "holistic" universe. Within the scientific universe of discourse 

 Smuts refuses to invoke any deus ex machina. Yet when he defines 

 hoUsm as "the ultimate synthetic, ordering, organising, regulative 

 activity in the universe which accounts for all the structural group- 

 ings and syntheses in it, from the atom and the physicochemical 

 structures, through the cell, and organisms, through mind in ani- 

 mals to Personality in man", he is almost laying himself open to 

 Carr's charge of "using a wrong word 'holism' when the right word 

 'entelechy' was staring him in the face". Yet of the two formulators, 

 we think that Smuts keeps nearer than Wildon Carr to the facts of 

 the case; for holism emphasises continuity and evolution. 



(7) Finally, it seems to us that the most tenable position is what 

 may be called "methodological vitaHsm". Mechanistic descriptions 

 are indispensable, and we owe to the mechanists in particular a 

 deeper understanding of the environmental factor in hving (E-»f->o). 

 But at its best, at present, mechanistic formulation is far from giving 

 us an adequate account of the life of organisms. Vitalistic descrip- 

 tions are also indispensable, for whether the organism has an 

 entelechy at heart, or whether it is one of a long series of "syntheses", 

 or "integrates", or "wholes", its life cannot be adequately described 

 in terms of mechanism. The vitalists have done good service in 

 emphasising the organismal factor in living (0 ->f ->e), and also, of 

 course, the functioning factor, for life is par excellence activity, as 

 Wildon Carr so well insists. But the scientific inquirer is not fond 

 of "principles" or "entelechies", and he dreads "vital forces" in 

 disguise; so what can he do but maintain, not a positive, but a 

 methodological vitalism? That is to say, as things are at present, 

 the mechanistic formulation of organisms and their functionings 

 in their environments does not answer the distinctively biological 

 questions. Biology has concepts of its own at present irreducible to 

 chemistry and physics : the living creature is an historic being en- 

 registering its experience; it is a purposive individuality that gets 

 things done; it grows, multiplies, develops, struggles, varies, and 

 evolves; it often has a mind of its own. 



VOL. I GG 



