1380 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



organic evolution, with man's animal descent, the rise of his psycho- 

 logy, etc., were more lightly touched, but not forgotten; and it was 

 felt well worth while to have at least prepared for discussion of such 

 large questions more comprehensively and fully at the corresponding 

 gatherings of coming years. 



Biology and Relativity. — Now however for the problems of 

 biology in this connection. What of all this mathematico-physical 

 revolution for and from the point of view of the sciences of life? —  

 since these have loyally to acknowledge the fundamental contri- 

 butions of bio-mechanics, bio-chemistry, and bio-physics in the 

 past, and must remain open to such further contributions as these 

 may make in the future. Coming however to the most general of 

 questions, it is peculiarly interesting to note that the rigorous 

 determinism hitherto so characteristic of the physical sciences is 

 being questioned by the physicists for some of their latest develop- 

 ments; so that the traditions of physical determinism and physio- 

 logical "materialism" are so far being shaken. Even beyond this, 

 it is remarkable that so relativist a physicist as Eddington, and 

 apparently not as solitary instance, should be speculating on the 

 correlation of his ultimate view of matter and energy with that of 

 "mind-stuff"; and again that Whitehead should be initiating "an 

 organismal conception" of intra-atomic functioning. 



We cannot here discuss these speculations, yet it is important to 

 note that their authors present them as a beginning of a new trend 

 in physical science, in fact as from its past philosophy of determinism 

 towards one admitting something of freedom, if not even passing 

 towards a new movement more or less idealistic. But this we may 

 best leave for the present to the physicists to whom they are 

 primarily addressed. 



Biology and Time-Questions. — Enough here to say a word or 

 two from the standpoint of the biologist. As for the so-called 

 "fourth dimension", of time, what for him can be simpler than to 

 recall the physicist's attention (sometimes in our experience seem- 

 ing curiously forgotten) to the familiar aspect of the nearest tree- 

 stump, with X and y co-ordinates as cross-diameters of its plane 

 circle, each so plainly modified by t for time, since the number of 

 "rings" expresses its annual growths; and next to realise how in 

 longitudinal section, the tree-stem also obviously yields us as many 

 annual cones of growth, with the vertical co-ordinate, of z, as axial. 

 So the resultant form is plainly that of a; x ^, _y X /, and z x t; 

 yet all this is still in the three familiar Euclidean dimensions, and 

 on the three Cartesian co-ordinates accordingly; so without the 

 difficulty of thinking of t as an independent dimension, but simply 

 as increasing all three, as plain folk have always seen. Here, too, 

 is a similarly elementary image for the Bergsonian duree, as 

 similarly is the growth of a shell, or a fish-scale. And even though 



