Significance of the Internal Secretory System 159 



this sort of thing in science more frequently than Loeb. The 

 conception that the "whole" exercises a "tyranny" over the 

 parts we must accept as being seriously scientific with Loeb. 

 Well then, since tyranny is "absolute power arbitrarily or 

 unjustl}^ administered," according to the dictionary, it is 

 certainly interesting to an organismalist to find so eminent 

 an elementalist acknowledging the organism as a whole to be 

 truly causal relative to its parts — for it is hardly conceiv- 

 able that even the extreme pliability of elementalist practice 

 as regards the definition of words would venture to hold the 

 absolute power which constitutes tyranny to be without 

 causal efficiency. Power thus potent but which could cause 

 nothing, not even the destruction of the parts (for surely 

 the tyranny of the whole does not destroy the parts), would 

 be too queer a conception for anybody to father deliber- 

 ately. 



But the most interesting thing about this idea of the 

 "tyranny" of the whole over the parts remains to be no- 

 ticed. T3^ranny is not merely absolute power; it is such 

 power exercised unjustly or "in a manner contrary to law 

 or justice." 



Here we come, I think, to about the last ditch of the ele- 

 mentalist position. On what ground does one conceive the 

 power exercised by the whole organism over its parts, to be 

 contrary to law or justice. According to what legisla- 

 ture or court is there a law of the parts of an organism more 

 just than the law of the whole? None whatever in nature, 

 it must I think, be admitted. The only ground for the ele- 

 mentalist's pronouncement, that the wliole acts tyrannously 

 toward the parts, that it acts in a manner "contrary to law 

 or justice" is in the mind of the yerson who makes the pro- 

 nouncement. 



The truth is — and it is of great importance since its 

 influence reaches far beyond the confines of scientific tech- 

 nicalities — any scientist, especially any biologist, who is 



