Implications of the 'lliconcs of Nerve Action ^Oi) 



to be in reality dependent on such a^eneies, this sclior)! !«, 

 wont to remark in substance that investifration lias finallv 

 "transferred" the phenonuiia t'loiii tlic provinces of /ooln^v, 

 in()r})hol()^y, general ])hvsioloi»v and the othci* sciences of 

 animal life, to ])hy'Sics and chemistry. Our ar<rument puts 

 beyond (]uestion the lof/ical inadecpiacv of such a statement. 

 Analysis does not by any means transfer the phenomena 

 from zoology, etc., info ]}liysics and chemist ly. Witlur 

 analysis nor any other agency can any more take the study 

 of animal phenomena away from zoology and ])ut it into 

 physics and cbcmistry than it can take })read-making away 

 from tlie baker's art and put it into physics and cliemistry. 

 The chemist may undoubtedly take to bread-making and find 

 that his new em])loyment has much in common witli his old ; 

 but in so far as he really succeeds at the new, he is more a 

 baker than a chemist. He has not transferred bread-making 

 to chemistry, but if anything has done just the reverse. 

 What analysis actually does in these cases is to extend the 

 bounds of physico-chemical forces and laws into zoology, 

 morphology, etc., and to prove that if zoological, morpholog- 

 ical and physiological undertakings are to move into ever 

 greater fullness, aid from physics and chemistry is indis- 

 pensable. 



Thus critical examination of the reasoning of elemen- 

 talist biology reveals the logical falhictj in any sort of state- 

 ment which involves the assumption that the older sciences 

 of organic beings, like taxonomic botany and /oology, geo- 

 gra])hical distribution, mori)hology, general physiology and 

 so on, are not and never can Ix' relegated to j)laces of minor 

 or secondary importance in biology. Hut it is the praetieid 

 liarmfidness of such assumj)tions rather than the logical 

 fallacies underlying them which cliietly concern us in this 

 volume, and no part of our whole subject is more vitally 

 aifected by such harmfulness than this of the InOiaNior, even 

 the purely tropistic behavior, of animals. The whole round 



