24 The Unity of the Organism 



Nature and Scope of the Undertaking 



The foundation of our enterprise, so far as historic sum- 

 mary is concerned, being laid, we may now exhibit the plans, 

 floor-plans and elevations, as architects say, of the super- 

 structure; but the barest outlines will suffice. Leaving off 

 figurative speaking, we must now state in bald outline the 

 central aim of the undertaking. It is to show that while 

 the two conceptions, the organismal and the elemental, con- 

 tain much that is thoroughly irreconcilable, there is a great 

 substratum of truth underlying both. Adhering to the mode 

 of expression previously used in characterizing the two 

 points of view, the central idea which we shall try to es- 

 tablish may be put as follows : The organism in its totality 

 is as essential to an explanation of its elements as its ele- 

 ments are to an explanation of the organism. This formula- 

 tion which has been in service with me for many years in 

 university lectures and in verbal discussions with colleagues, 

 is approached, somewhat remotely by several authors, earlier 

 and later. Thus L. Rhumbler says at the conclusion of the 

 article Correlation, in the Handworterbuch der Naturwis- 

 senschaften: "One may assume perhaps that each function 

 of an organ, etc., is bound correlatively to the functions of 

 all other organs, even though perhaps many times in the 

 slightest way and through means in part replaceable, so that 

 by this the organism as a whole is influenced to a definite 

 degree by each of its organs, and vice versa [that] through 

 these numberless influences the so-called influence of the 

 whole upon the parts in turn finds its explanation even 

 though complicatedly and at present reaching only to some 

 details." 21 We have here the Rouxian form of elementalism 

 at which we have already glanced, but it seemed worth while 

 to notice this particular expression of it since its advance 

 toward organismalism as contrasted with chemical elemen- 

 talism is well brought out. 



