190 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



a limited field : there is some agent at work in 

 morphogenesis which is not of the type of 

 physico-chemical agents . ' ' 



Germane to the proof which we have just 

 been considering is that drawn from the ovary 

 Ovary and which constitutes what Driesch calls a complex- 

 ova cquipotential system. The ovary contains the 



ova from which succeeding generations are to 

 arise. Does each egg contain a " machine " ? 

 How can it do so when we consider that before 

 it has come into existence it has had to undergo 

 an enormous number of divisions ? Surely it 

 could not divide and divide and being a 

 machine always remain the same? Remem- 

 ber too that the machine since the adult 

 organism, a tremendously complicated thing, 

 has to arise from it must itself be an enor- 

 mously complicated machine. 



Of course, it may be argued that the Anlage* 

 of the ovary is not a machine; but those who 

 make this assertion have to show us how it is 

 that in the course of its divisions and when 

 the last, by which the egg is produced, has 

 arrived, a machine is the result. Where does 

 that machine suddenly make its appearance 

 from? "Thus it follows that our problem 



* There is no real substitute for this German word which 

 is now quite familiar to scientific readers. It means the 

 early substance from which any particular organ or part is 

 formed the tiny bud, so to speak, from which the full 

 blossom arises. 



