10 The Unity of the Organism 



This reference to Schwann as an elementalist being 

 primarily in the interest of our historic background, a crit- 

 ical examination of his position would be out of place. But 

 it is desirable to call attention to one important logical, or 

 perhaps more properly psychological, implication of his 

 standpoint. The elemental theory applied to organisms 

 which, as we have just seen, he stated so well and adopted 

 in his interpretation of the cellular composition of organ- 

 isms, is in reality not so much of a theory of organic 

 phenomena themselves as of knowledge of those phenomena. 

 In other words, Schwann started out in his investigations 

 not, in the first instance, with a theory of organisms, but 

 with a theory of knowledge of organisms. The great im- 

 portance of this mode of approach to biological problems 

 will be brought out more fully later. Enough is it to re- 

 mark here that so much has the theory of scientific knowl- 

 edge applied in Schwann's position grown in definiteness and 

 influence with time, that to-day many biological elementalists 

 hold unquestioningly the view that the sum and substance 

 of scientific knowledge of organic beings is a knowledge of 

 the elements of which these beings are composed. According 

 to the theory of biology held by these biologists, the busi- 

 ness, and the only legitimate business, of the science is to 

 reduce organisms to as few and as simple elements as pos- 

 sible; and in its extreme form the aim is exactly what 

 it was with the very earliest elementalists, namely to reach 

 finally one or a very few ultimate elements. To explain or- 

 ganisms is, according to this theory of knowledge, to reduce 

 them to their elements, and it is nothing else. 



Since 1890 the organismal view has exhibited a rather 

 vigorous reanimation. Details as to how this has come 

 about and as to what the renewed manifestations of life 

 consist in cannot be entered into now. However, one highly 

 significant circumstance must be noted: the rehabilitation 

 has had little or nothing to do with the form assumed by 



