FUNCTION AND ENVIRONMENT 191 



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, em- 

 phasized the importance of the Environ- 

 ment; others, such as Lamarck, laid the 

 main stress on Function; others, such as 

 Goethe, discerned that, after all, the mov- 

 ing spirit in the drama of evolution is the 

 Organism. It may be said without dog- 

 matism 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 

 evolution theories was in part that it got 

 nearer to seeing life whole. The Organism 

 was appreciated: it is the fountain of change; 

 it is aggressive, insurgent, even riotous, in 

 its multiplication; it struggles, it even 

 chooses. Rightly or wrongly, Function was 



