!86 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



of formation and maintenance and their causal relations shall 

 be to a considerable extent understood. For in this way we 

 _shall acquire a deeper insight into pathological changes and 

 at the same time a foundation for a therapeutics scientific 

 in the true sense of the word and based upon adequate under- 

 standing. 



Just as developmental mechanics litilizes for its own purposes 

 all methods which may be productive of causal understanding and 

 all biological disciplines, so does it embrace as its field of inves- 

 tigation all living things, from the lowest Protista to the highest 

 animal and vegetable organisms. 



Accordingly these Archives will accept causal essays on all bio- 

 logical subjects, but as it does not propose to compete on their 

 own special grounds with periodicals devoted to special sub- 

 jects, only those biological papers will be inchided which directly 

 pursue a causal aim and for which tJie material has been collected 

 and elaborated with this end in view. 



Descriptive papers, however, containing only occasional sup- 

 positions of a causal nature, or even apodictic assertions with- 

 out any attempt to support these assumptions by comparison 

 of the different pertinent facts, fall outside the scope of these 

 Archives. But it may be suggested to such authors as desire 

 their causal remarks to be preserved, to send their papers to 

 the editor, with an indication of the passages in question, so 

 that attention may be called to them incidentally, perhaps in 

 the form of an essay. 



Papers of a comparative anatomical nature which reduce the 

 forms of organisms exclusively to the factors of variation and 

 heredity, without attempting any further analysis of these 

 "inconstant" complex components, also lie outside the terri- 

 tory covered by our Archives, since such preliminary analysis 

 together with the ascertainment of descent, properly belongs 

 to the field of comparative anatomy. 



It is much to be wished that in concluding every contribution 

 which appears in these Archives, the causal results be concisely 

 summarized. Although such a summary can at most have 

 only a provisional value, it is nevertheless of great assistance 

 to the author, who is thus compelled to reduce his views to the 



