154 THE UNIQUENESS OF LIFE 



ing for something, ^' at work ■' as Driesch says. On this view, 



obviously, there is a deep-lying distinction between the flight 



of a bird and the movement of a comet, and Biology is by 



hypothesis autonomous. A general statement of this third 



position, apart from Driesch's particular formulation, has 



been given by Ritter (1911, p. 437). After stating that 



materialism is the belief that all vital phenomena can be 



completely explained in terms of the material elements that 



go to make up the organism, he defines vitalism as ^^ the 



belief that organic phenomena cannot be fully explained by 



referring them to the material elements of which organisms 



are composed, but that something not really belonging to 



the natural order, either explicit or implicit, is present in 



living things. The essence of the conception, whatever be its 



variety or form of statement, is that something absolutely 



new and novel came into the world when living beings 



came and that this came as a special force, or principle, or 



factor — anything you have in mind to call it, so long as 



it is not material. A further essential to the conception is 



that this new thing is elemental, protean, once-for-all. It 



is not exactly the life itself of the organism. It is rather 



the informing, underpinning, ultimate motor, of life." 



The general nature of the argument that Driesch uses to 

 support his conception of Entelechy may be briefly indi- 

 cated. He takes in particular the facts of morphogenesis — 

 the development of the embryo or the regeneration of a lost 

 part. If what takes place is determined solely by physical 

 factors there must be something in the nature of a very 

 complex machine in the egg or at the cut end of the hydroid 

 branch from which a new polyp grows. He allows the 

 imagination to erect this machine with all conceivable 

 intricacy and device, and then proceeds remorselessly to 



