42 CREATIVE EVOLUTION iohap. 



tonomy. To say nothing of phagocytes, which push inde- 

 pendence to the point of attacking the organism that 

 nourishes them, or of germinal cells, which have their own 

 life alongside the somatic cells — the facts of regeneration 

 are enough: here an element or a group of elements sud- 

 denly reveals that, however limited its normal space and 

 function, it can transcend them occasionally; it may even, 

 in certain cases, be regarded as the equivalent of the 

 whole. 



There lies the stumbling-block of the vitalistic theories. 

 We shall not reproach them, as is ordinarily done, with 

 replying to the question by the question itself: the "vital 

 principle" may indeed not explain much, but it is at least 

 a sort of label affixed to our ignorance, so as to remind 

 us of this occasionally, 1 while 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 pre- 

 tends to have its own. But, on the other hand, the in- 

 dividual itself is not sufficiently independent, not sufficiently 

 cut off from other things, for us to allow it a "vital princi- 



1 There are really two lines to follow in contemporary neo-vitalism: 

 on the one hand, the assertion that pure mechanism is insufficient, 

 which assumes great authority when made by such scientists as Driesch 

 or Reinke, for example; and, on the other hand, the hypotheses which 

 this vitalism superposes on mechanism (the "entelechies" of Driesch, 

 and the "dominants" of Reinke, etc.). Of these two parts, the former 

 is perhaps the more interesting. See the admirable studies of Driesch — 

 Die Lokalisation morphogenetischer Vorgange, Leipzig, 1899; Die organ- 

 ischen Regukttionen, Leipzig, 1901; Naturbegriffe und Natururteile, Leip- 

 zig, 1904; Der Vitalismus als Geschichte und ate Lehre, Leipzig, 1905; 

 and of Reinke — Die Welt als Tat, Berlin, 1899; Einleitung in die 

 theoretische Biologie, Berlin, 1901; Phiiosophie der Botanik, Leipzig, 

 1905. 



