FUNCTION AND ENVIRONMENT 191 



the whole rising generation of vitalists, 

 German and other. The anatomist and sys- 

 tematist, the chemical and physical physio- 

 logist, have been, and still are, wont to reject 

 this; and not without reason that of the 

 positivism of science, which rightly shrinks 

 from the acceptance of abstract entities and 

 causes. Undeniably, whatever may be our 

 sympathy for these manifold suggestions of 

 vitalist evolutionism, they are still too much 

 open to Moliere's ridicule, as of explaining the 

 effect of opium by its " dormitiveness." 



We need not continue these historical 

 illustrations, but the important point is this, 

 that some naturalists, such as Buffon, empha- 

 sized the importance of the Environment; 

 others, such as Lamarck, laid the main stress 

 on Function; others, such as Goethe, discerned 

 that, after all, the moving spirit in the drama 

 of evolution is the Organism. It may be 

 said without dogmatism that the adequacy 

 of an evolution theory is in proportion to its 

 recognition of all the three categories, which 

 give, in point of fact, the three aspects of 

 life. 



Surely, whatever may be the limits of 

 Darwinism, its superiority to preceding evolu- 

 tion theories was in part that it got nearer to 

 seeing life whole. The Organism was appre- 



