ORGANISM AND MECHANISM 135 



which astronomy deals, but main-ly because biology has to 

 deal with individualities which are variable and spontaneous, 

 always to some extent unpredictable. It must be granted, 

 however, that there has been a strong modern movement 

 towards exactness even in the most difficult departments of 

 biology. There has been for a long time much exact science 

 in comparative anatomy and comparative physiology, but 

 the recent labours of the biometricians on the one hand, and 

 of the experimenters in genetics on the other, have already 

 done much to bring the study of evolution problems nearer 

 the ideal of exact science. In fact, as has been sagaciously 

 pointed out, biology has already become a science to a 

 degree that Kant deemed impossible, and this achievement 

 helps to keep the biologist from admitting the validity of 

 Kant's view that there is only one science of Nature. 



§ 8. Answers to Criticisms. 



Our argument may perhaps be strengthened by meeting 

 some criticisms brought against what may be called the bio- 

 logical position. 



(a) It has been suggested that those who think that vital 

 phenomena require special biological categories are under- 

 rating what physico-chemical material systems can do. 

 " Many a machine is constructed to oil itself the more copi- 

 ously when it works the faster, and the printing-press, as 

 we urge it to put out more newspapers on the one side, 

 pulls in more blank paper on the other " (D'Arcy W. Thomp- 

 son, Life and Finite Individuality, p. 37). Now there is 

 undoubted utility in comparing a living creature with a 

 machine, especially a machine with automatic regulatory 

 arrangements. Both are systems effecting the transforma- 

 tion of matter and energy; both illustrate the co-operation 



