DISCUSSION 
adaptive channels by means of various homoeostatic processes. 
Klein: Asa biologist I feel a bit worried about non-biologists 
trying to tell us what biology is. Dr. Bronowski said that bio- 
logical thinking started with Darwin. I am full of respect and 
admiration for Darwin, but the word biology emerged much 
earlier, in 1802. It came from three quite different places: 
from Lamarck in France, and from Treviranus and Burdach in 
Germany. This word, which had not existed earlier, appeared 
in the period of romanticism. This kind of romantic thinking 
is not quite forgotten today and has at least some echoes in 
biology and medicine. I am quite aware that 1859 was a date 
of enormous importance in human thinking, but it was not 
the starting point of biological thinking. 
Bronowski: You are right, except that I would also quote 
Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, who lived before 1802. 
However, it was not biological thinking, it was statistical 
thinking that was derived from Darwin. The leading physicist 
who started statistical mechanics, Ludwig Boltzmann, acknow- 
ledged that the theory of natural selection had influenced him 
to view the behaviour of gases statistically. 
Klein: But to go back to the historical point of view, Darwin 
said several times that his theory came through Malthus, and 
Malthus published his views first in 1798. 
Huxley: Darwin’s theory didn’t come from Malthus, al- 
though he was stimulated to think of his theory by reading 
Malthus. Malthus stressed the pressure of population on 
resources, but had no idea of selection. 
Klein: Dr. Szent-Gyérgyi, why do you feel you must wash 
your hands of vitalism? Vitalism is not a shame or a sin. The 
old vitalism of Stahl is dead, but I think that all medical men 
here would agree that we can’t think without—I shouldn’t say 
vitalism—but something different from a physicochemical ex- 
planation. MacKay has talked about the action of force on 
force and the action of form on form, and I had the feeling that 
between force-force and form-form was the gap between the 
physical explanation and the biological explanation. I agree 
that with biology we are in a new world. 
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