X INTRODUCTION 



of life took origin. The embryologists and the natura- 

 lists of our own generation have studied the whole 

 organism in its normal functioning and behaviour, and 

 have obtained results which cannot easily be under- 

 stood as physico-chemical mechanism. Life is not the 

 activities of the organism, but the integration of the 

 activities of the organism, just as Reality for Physics 

 is not the atoms and molecules of gross matter, but 

 the integration of these in the ether of space. 



This, then, is all that we mean by the philosophy of 

 Biology — the attempt to understand the descriptions 

 of the Science in the light of its later investigations. 

 Philosophy, in the academic sense, we have not con- 

 sidered in relation to the subject-matter of our science, 

 though there is much in the classic systems that is 

 of absorbing interest, even to the working investigator 

 of the nineteenth century. The biological education is 

 not, however, such as to predispose one towards these 

 studies. The reader will recognise that the point of 

 view, and the methods of treatment, adopted in this 

 book are those suggested by Driesch and Bergson, 

 even if no references are given. He may, perhaps, 

 appreciate this limitation ; for, influenced by the 

 modern scientific training, he may be inclined to 

 regard Philosophy as Mark Twain regarded his Egyptian 

 mummy : if he is to have a corpse it might as well be 

 a real fresh one. 



J. J- 



Liverpool 

 November 191 3 



