June 16, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



927 



Mr. Robert Newstead, lecturer in eco- 

 nomic entomology and parasitology in tbe 

 Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, has 

 been appointed to the newly-established But- 

 ton Memorial chair of entomology in the 

 University of Liverpool. 



DISCUSSION AND COESESPONDENCE 



VITALISM AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION 



In connection with the recent helpful dis- 

 cussions of vitalism by Eitter' and Lovejoy," 

 one point seems worthy of further emphasis. 

 Some men are interested in science because of 

 its bearing on general philosophical problems ; 

 others are interested in philosophical prob- 

 lems because of their bearing on the way to 

 go to work in science. Both attitudes are 

 proper enough; but one's treatment of such a 

 question as vitalism is largely determined by 

 which of these attitudes he takes. The point 

 I wish to emphasize arises from the second 

 attitude. Has vitalism (in any of the brands 

 set forth by Lovejoy) any bearing on the 

 theory and practise of scientific investigation? 



This is a practical question in which the ex- 

 perimentalist as such must be interested, even 

 though he may pride himself on his indiffer- 

 ence to philosophical speculation. One kind 

 of vitalism appears to me to affect funda- 

 mentally the theory of scientific work ; for this 

 reason this kind appears of more interest than 

 the other, if not the only kind worth distin- 

 guishing. 



The man of science at work with his two 

 hands is trying to find the determining con- 

 ditions for what takes place in matter and 

 energy, and how these conditions act. In so 

 doing he is led to make a study of the various 

 possible methods of work, and particularly of 

 the various ideas and devices that are pre- 

 sented to him as deserving consideration in 

 his work. Many such things come to the 

 worker in biology from outside his own special 

 field; particularly from physics and chemistry. 

 Such were the theories of electric dissociation ; 

 much in the physics of colloids, and the like. 

 The biologist is compelled to examine these to 

 see how useful they are in his own experi- 



^ Science, March 24, 1911. 



= Science, April 21, 1911. 



mental analysis; often he finds them of the 

 greatest value, and he modifies his methods of 

 work accordingly. 



Various theories of vitalism have likewise 

 been brought to the attention of the investi- 

 gator, but as a rule he has taken little interest 

 in these, because they seemed of such a na- 

 ture as not to affect his work; they seemed 

 merely general suggestions and refiections on 

 the fundamental meaning of what one sees in 

 biology, of interest primarily to the man for 

 whom science is the handmaid of philosophy, 

 rather than the reverse. They did not attempt 

 to provide an instrument for actual use in ex- 

 perimentation, nor an idea according to which 

 scientific practise must be altered. 



This appears to be the case with the first 

 kind of vitalism distinguished by Lovejoy; a 

 vitalism which holds that there are new modes 

 of action in living things, but that the new 

 modes of action are nevertheless functions of 

 the configuration of the matter and energy 

 involved, so that after we have discovered how 

 a given physical configuration acts, we can 

 depend upon it, as we depend upon such con- 

 stancy in the inorganic sciences. Such a 

 vitalism involves no fundamental change in 

 our methods of work; we continue to test, by 

 fitting methods, how given configurations act, 

 and to record the results in proper generali- 

 zations, exactly as in physics and chemistry. 

 Biology would then, so far as scientific method 

 is concerned, bear the same relation to physics 

 and chemistry that any unexplored part of 

 these sciences bears to the explored parts. 

 The distinction between vitalistie science and 

 physical science would have but a very mild 

 interest for the worker with his hands; it has 

 no pragmatic bearings. 



On the other hand, the second kind of vital- 

 ism distinguished by Lovejoy makes assertions 

 which would if true require serious considera- 

 tion in actual practise; indeed, it is put 

 forward by its advocates as supplying certain 

 factors which require consideration on the 

 same grounds as do electric dissociation and 

 osmotic pressure; factors without which our 

 experimental analysis is bound to be incom- 

 plete or wrong. Its acceptance would logically 



