Decembek 20, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



859 



whom I once heard William James desig- 

 nate as the "soft-minded man," in distinc- 

 tion to the "hard-minded" person of ma- 

 terialistic tendencies. The biologist, or bio- 

 physicist, however, and in certain impor- 

 tant aspects of the problem the psycholo- 

 gist too, will press forward their investiga- 

 tions of form-dominating energies with, 

 we will hope, supreme disregard for philo- 

 sophical consequences. 



With each ascending step in the series 

 of organizations, the possible existence of 

 a dominant factor becomes of greater sig- 

 nificance. When we reach that highest 

 level with which the biologist ordinarily 

 has to deal, the organism as a whole, or the 

 individual, we have to contemplate the 

 existence of a dynamic agent which bears, 

 to the form of the whole organism, some- 

 what the same relation that higher nervous 

 centers bear to the coordinated muscular 

 activities of the body as a whole. How far 

 in the descending series of organizations is 

 any such dynamic factor of the whole di- 

 rectly operative? Does it exert any direct 

 influence upon lower units such as cells? 

 What can be the nature of such energies? 

 What is their relation to the energies with 

 whose manifestations in the so-called inor- 

 ganic realm we are inclined to feel our- 

 selves somewhat more familiar? Do they 

 endanger the integrity of that foundation 

 rock of science, the principle of the conser- 

 vation of energy? Finally, what is their 

 relation to the conscious voluntary life of 

 the individual? 



When we trace the process of evolution 

 in inverse order, everything organic ap- 

 pears to converge into a primitive and 

 simple bit of living substance. Can we es- 

 cape the conclusion that the elements of 

 every power and attribute possessed by the 

 highest and most complex organism are in- 

 herent in the simplest protoplasm? To 

 this question no dogmatic answer, but at 



best merely a statement of opinion, can be 

 given. In simple unicellular organisms and 

 also in individual cells of multicellular or- 

 ganisms, the various operations involved in 

 metabolism, in reproduction and in move- 

 ment, are all carried on in one common 

 protoplasmic body in which we can discover 

 no separate mechanisms or organs corres- 

 ponding to the several functions. (The 

 temporary organs of mitosis appear to take 

 their origin, upon occasion, from this com- 

 mon protoplasmic body.) Shall we not be 

 obliged to credit the unicellular organism, 

 at least — and if that, why not a leucocyte 

 or a tissue cell too ? — with the possession of 

 some elemental germs of consciousness and 

 will? Or is it more reasonable to assume 

 that these attributes of the living have been 

 created de novo and injected into organisms 

 at a more or less advanced stage of evolu- 

 tion? If we admit the existence of some 

 degree of consciousness and volitional ac- 

 tion in a protoplasmic body in which there 

 is not only no nervous structural mechan- 

 ism, but in which all of the vital operations 

 are carried on as functions of the whole 

 and not as functions of localized separate 

 mechanisms, we encounter the possibility 

 that primitively all of the vital activities 

 are equally linked with consciousness and 

 will. If, now, there exists in this common 

 protoplasmic mass a dynamic agent deter- 

 mining form, how shall we exclude it from 

 this same relation with consciousness and 

 will ? Or, to suggest what is, to the general 

 biological mind, the remotest of psycho- 

 physical possibilities, is this dynamic agent 

 which organizes living substance identical 

 with conscious wiU? To weave further 

 this filmy tissue of possibilities, assume that 

 primitively the determination of form, to- 

 gether with all other vital or protoplasmic 

 operations, was somehow linked with primi- 

 tive volition. How, then, in the course of 

 evolution has the control of form, together 



