METHOD IN SCIENCE 23 



munity as a result reached by, and in spite of, internal 

 stresses. In such an organism each part is excited or 

 inhibited, or both, by the secretions of the other parts. 

 Any secretion is an excretion, but these excretions have 

 found their uses, either as activators or catalysts, or as 

 direct depressants or inhibitors. That the biological 

 conception is universally true of all organisms is suggested 

 not only in biology proper, but by the hostility, open or 

 subdued, which characterizes classes in society, and it 

 suggests, and in many cases supplies, a real key to the com- 

 prehension of developmental disease. As was suggested 

 above, it throws a light upon the effects of diseases other 

 than developmental, since death frequently occurs from 

 an indirect effect on parts of the organism, some of which are 

 destroyed, and others stimulated. When recovery occurs, 

 it often happens that the grave disturbance of a violent 

 infection is found to have disturbed the symbiotic life of 

 the organism, and by reducing some part, or gland, to partial 

 impotence, either by excitation or inhibition, leads to later 

 failures of development or to lethal overgrowth. We can 

 thus imagine a slight organic " social " disturbance in a 

 human being leading directly to acromegaly or other 

 disorders of the pituitary, or to myxcedema, Graves' 

 Disease, and all the possible effects of hypo- or hyper- 

 thyroidism. 



In carrying the analogical method so far, I am well aware 

 that it will be said that such suggestions are without 

 foundation, that they are true but unimportant, or that 

 they are important and that every one knew them long ago. 

 But I have been more impressed by a single fact than I 

 shall be by all such criticisms combined. When I suggested 

 to an eminent pathologist that, without a considerable 

 knowledge of biology, very much of pathology could not be 



