UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



living body and gave it organs? Of course the func- 

 tioning of any bodily organ involves chemical proc- 

 esses, but do the processes determine the function? 

 Do they assign one function to the liver, another to 

 the kidneys, another to the heart? In other words, is 

 the organizing effort that awakens in matter the 

 result of chemistry and physics? 



Do we not need to go outside of the material con- 

 stituents of a living body to account for its purpo- 

 sive organization? Can we deduce an eye or an ear 

 or a brain from any of the known chemical proper- 

 ties or their material elements? Does any living 

 thing necessarily follow from its known chemical 

 composition? Do the material constituents of the 

 different parts of a machine determine the purpose 

 and function of that machine? The function of an 

 organ and the organ itself are the result of some un- 

 known but intelligent power in the body as a whole. 



I have no purpose to discredit Haeckel's science 

 or his philosophy, but only to show how great is his 

 scientific faith, — how much it presupposes, and 

 what a burden it throws upon chemistry and phys- 

 ics. Like all the later philosophical biologists, he 

 reaches a point in his argument when chemistry and 

 physics become creative, while he fails to see that 

 they differ at all in their activities from the chemis- 

 try and physics of inorganic matter. To be consist- 

 ent he is forced to believe in the possibility of the 

 artificial production of life. He helps himseff out by 



174 



