July 21, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



93 



The study of animal behavior justifies the 

 inference that consciousness is effective in 

 them as in man. But to a far greater de- 

 gree are their lives mechanized. Those of 

 plants appear to be wholly so, whatever 

 they may once have been. 



I have made this plea for a rehearing of 

 the case of the vitalist, knowing full well 

 that his is not a popular cause among my 

 scientific 'colleagues. The reasons why I 

 have done so have been presented. No one 

 realizes more than I the liability of error 

 involved, for I am far from familiar fields 

 of investigation. If I am in error, past ex- 

 perience has taught me that the error will 

 soon be discovered and pointed out by 

 those with whom I differ, and the truth 

 which we all seek will be advanced. 



But by no means should men of science 

 play the part of the theologians of the 

 fifties. The spirit of science is not dog- 

 matic. And yet extremes meet and some- 

 times the spirit of the twentieth-century 

 scientist matches that of the theological 

 dogmatist of the nineteenth. For when 

 Minot ('02) maintained the thesis that con- 

 sciousness must have been a factor in evo- 

 lution his paper aroused such bitter oppo- 

 sition that one scientific colleague, who by 

 his prejudices was wholly incapable of ap- 

 preciating the fundamental strength of 

 Minot 's position, had his copy of Science 

 bound mutilated by leaving out the num- 

 ber containing Dr. Minot 's address. He 

 did this on the ground that as a friend of 

 Dr. Minot 's he did not wish to perpetuate 

 a paper which would undermine Dr. 

 Minot 's reputation as a scientific man. 



The objectionable thesis of Minot 's was 

 as follows: 



It seems to me inconceivable that the evolution 

 of animals should have taken place as it actually 

 has taken place unless consciousness is a real fac- 

 tor and dominant. Accordingly I hold that it 

 actually affects the vital processes. There is, in my 

 judgment, no possibility of avoiding the conclusion 



that consciousness stands in immediate causal re- 

 lations with physiological processes. To say this 

 is to abide by the facts, as at present known to us, 

 and with the facts our conceptions must be made 

 to accord. 



In justice to the zoologist who did what 

 he could to obliterate all traces of Dr. 

 Minot 's paper, it is only fair to say that 

 science has every reason on the basis of ex- 

 perience to regard such "vitalistic" views 

 as "dangerous" from the standpoint of 

 mechanism, because of the constant tempta- 

 tion to pass in explanation over into the 

 psychological field — in other words, to re- 

 vert to primitive modes of explanation. 

 Therefore, to the person under discussion 

 Dr. Minot may have seemed indeed a traitor 

 to science. 



But this is, I am sure, a most exceptional 

 case, and quite anachronous. The spirit of 

 the scientist is not the intolerant spirit of 

 the partisan. Every biologist may be ex- 

 pected to treat the cause of the vitalist as 

 if it were his own cause and grant him the 

 rehearing in the court of philosophy which 

 he now demands. In the discussion of this 

 problem as believers in the scientific method 

 it is our duty to set forth ' ' that calm, fair- 

 minded, tolerant spirit" which has charac- 

 terized the thought of scientific men in the 

 past. This — the scientific — spirit means, 

 as President Vincent has said: 

 an attitude of open-mindedness towards all truth; 

 a determination to get all the essential facts be- 

 fore forming a judgment; a willingness to aban- 

 don a position when it is no longer intellectually 

 tenable; a tolerance of the opinions of others 

 which are to be accounted for rather than derided 

 or denounced. This spirit is free from acrimony, 

 blind partizanship and prejudice— the spirit which 

 Beeks the truth which makes men free. 



If, then, the question of vitalism is to be 

 discussed at all in our classrooms — I know 

 of none where this interminable problem is 

 not mentioned — and, if because of con- 

 science's sake we are unable to accept the 

 postulate of idealism, we may nevertheless 



