October 4, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



439 



is there that it ever likes to do anything 

 which it would not do in any case, by virtue 

 of its structure, even if it were unconscious? 



If the President will give us evidence that 

 volition is an agent in this sense of the 

 word; that it can do anything which is not 

 deducible from structure; that it can be a 

 cause of structure; that any one by taking- 

 thought can add one cubit to his stature) 

 I, for one, will hold him in the highest honor 

 as the greatest of discoverers; nor do I be- 

 lieve that he will find me prejudiced, for 

 I trust that I have done all that in me lies 

 to refrain from preconception, and I simply 

 want to know. 



" If he possesses such knowledge he is 

 just the man for whom I have long been 

 seeking. All knowledge can be communi- 

 cated, and therefore I might hope to see my 

 own knowledge increased to this prodigious 

 amount b}^ his instruction." (Kant; trans- 

 lated by Huxley; Hume, p. 208.) 



If the learned bodies which give their al- 

 legiance to the utterances I have quoted 

 will publish the evidence which proves that 

 consciousness and volition can cause struc- 

 ture or anything else, they will not only 

 demonstrate their own scientific eminence, 

 but, by settling a question which has never 

 ceased to vex the mind of man, they will 

 make the closing years of the nineteenth 

 century memorable for all time by the 

 greatest scientific discovery the world has 

 seen. 



In an article which was printed in Sci- 

 ence in April, 1895, I urged the need for 

 philosophic doubt on the problems of life, 

 and I also took occassion to affirm my own 

 opinion that the phenomena of vitality and 

 of volition are so peciiliar that these words 

 are most useful ones in so much as they help 

 to focus the most distinctive problems of 

 biology. 



I thought I had made it clear that vay plea 

 for these words is based on their value in 

 helping us to keep difficulties in clear view 



and not because they explain anything; 

 and I have been much surprised by the re- 

 ceipt of a number of letters from Vitalists 

 who welcome me as a new recruit. 



N'o one likes to march alone ; and both 

 sides put the man who does not take sides 

 with the enemy. We need all the comrades 

 we can get in our weary, way through life, 

 and I regret the necessity which forces me 

 to tell my correspondents I cannot fight 

 under their banner; and that my onlj^ pur- 

 pose in writing the article was to show that 

 intolerance has followed the conversion into 

 a belief, by pious Monists, of Huxley's care- 

 fully guarded declaration that he lives ' in 

 the hope and in the faith ' that we shall some 

 time be able to see our way from the con- 

 stituents of living matter to its properties. 



Nothing was farther from my thoughts 

 than any dogmatic assertion that vitalitj^ 

 and volition are outside the domain of 

 physical matter and mechanical energy, or 

 that they are agents, and I had in mind 

 certain zoologists who seem to me to be at- 

 tempting to discoiint the possibilities of 

 future discovery in defiance of the warning 

 "that the assertion which outstrips evidence 

 is not only a blunder but a crime." 



Eecent utterances seem to show that all 

 the criminals are not among the material- 

 ists, and that the dogmatism of biologists 

 must be attacked at both ends of the line. 



In all seriousness we ask, what can 

 fundamental disagreement among those 

 who speak with authority lead to, except 

 disaster? Are we not bound to find first 

 principles which will command the assent 

 of all thinking men ? 



Those who hold the creed that all the ac- 

 tivities of animals and plants will some day 

 be deduced from the properties of the physic- 

 al basis of life are not likely to be influenced 

 by anjf other opinion of the matter, whether 

 this be called a belief, a hope or a working 

 hypothesis ; nor are those who hold that 

 our will is free at all persuaded by those 



