Febkuart 28, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



335 



anistic, and interprets this to mean either 

 " compatible with " (Loeb) or " reducible to " 

 mechanism, then, in order merely to comply 

 ■with the usual principles of scientific pro- 

 cedure, should he not determine with at least 

 some precision the meaning of these terms? 

 Otherwise, does not the claim, that the object 

 under examination is mechanistic, have only 

 the most general and indefinite meaning, such 

 as " determined," etc. ? Indeed, is not this 

 meaning the only one that characterizes the 

 position of most biologists, that life and life's 

 phenomena are mechanistic? But is not 

 " determined " itself a very general and indefi- 

 nite concept, awaiting, for precision, the 

 specification of particular causes? 



As concerns method, then, the reviewer is 

 of the opinion that neither the experiments 

 described by Professor Loeb in this volume, 

 nor, in fact, the whole list of results and 

 experiments obtained up to the present time 

 in application of physical chemistry to vital 

 phenomena, scientifically justify the sweeping 

 conclusion, either insinuated or made explicit, 

 that life and all that life manifests in the field 

 of conduct (ethics), science, religion and art, 

 etc., are mechanistic in any precise sense. 

 Such phenomena may be determined and 

 caused. That few would deny. And they 

 may also be mechanistic in some more precise 

 and technical sense of the term. But until 

 that sense is defined, and the meanings of 

 such terms as " reducible to," " compatible 

 with," and " explainable by " are specified 

 with precision, so that it can be ascertained 

 whether or not life and life's manifestations 

 are of such specific character as in some one 

 of these ways to be brought under mechanism, 

 proof is lacking for what is otherwise only a 

 vague conviction. However, in the present 

 stage of the analysis of most phenomena 

 manifested by living beings, both human and 

 non-human, there does not seem to be dis- 

 coverable sufficient evidence to show that they 

 are reducible to, or explainable by mechanistic 

 principles in any other than the most general 

 sense. The successful application of physical 

 chemistry to certain isolated biological phe- 

 nomena must, of course, be admitted, and the 



position that all of life's manifestations may 

 ultimately be also so related must be regarded 

 as a perfectly permissible working hypothesis. 

 But at the present time the position that 

 mechanics, physics and chemistry are, or ever 

 will be capable of explaining, in any precise 

 sense, the greater part of vital phenomena and 

 of life's manifestation, is so remote from the 

 experimental facts, that it can be regarded as 

 only a pure assumption. 



The reviewer can find, then, only a mini- 

 mum either of justification or of meaning in 

 such claims as Professor Loeb's book purports 

 to make, namely, that all human conduct, in 

 morals, esthetics, scientific thinking and re- 

 ligion, is mechanistic. Nor is there any more 

 justification or meaning for the view that it 

 is provided only all such phenomena are 

 mechanistic and can be related to physical 

 chemistry, that there can be a science of them. 

 One might as well claim that, until the brain 

 is completely explained by physical chemistry, 

 there can be no science of mathematics, since 

 the mathematician's thinking is dependent 

 upon his brain. Science is certainly not lim- 

 ited to physics and chemistry and their hybrid, 

 physical chemistry; even where these sciences 

 are not applicable, there may be description 

 and explanation, hypothesis and confirmation, 

 prediction and control, exactness and compu- 

 tation, causation and system. 



But further, it may be asked, not as con- 

 cerns Professor Loeb's methods, but as con- 

 cerns his broad generalizations, What would 

 they mean even if they were true ? What, for 

 example, does it mean to say that ethics, 

 mathematics, literature, law, etc., are mech- 

 anistic? Does it mean anything more than 

 that they are consistent with mechanistic 

 principles in the technical sense or that the 

 phenomena dealt with in these fields of knowl- 

 edge are subject to the law of causation? 

 But even with this meaning, would so saying 

 help to understand, or to get at specific results 

 in, the levels of phenomena with which these 

 branches of knowledge are concerned ? Would 

 not these branches still continue to exist? 

 And would not the phenomena with which 

 they deal have to be scientifically investigated 



