428 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 875 



with the dissipation of energy. Berthold, 

 who first demonstrated the obedience to 

 physical laws in the fundamental phenom- 

 ena of the dividing cell or segmenting egg, 

 recognizes, almost in the words of John 

 Hunter, a quality in the living protoplasm, 

 sui generis, whereby its maintenance, in- 

 crease and reproduction are achieved. 

 Driesch, who began as a "mechanist," now, 

 as we have seen, harks back straight to 

 Aristotle, to a twin or triple doctrine of 

 the soul. And Bergson, rising into heights 

 of metaphysics where the biologist, qua 

 biologist, can not climb, tells us (like 

 Duran) that life transcends teleology, that 

 the conceptions of mechanism and finality 

 fail to satisfy, and that only "in the abso- 

 lute do we live and move and have our 

 being." 



We end but a little way from where we 

 began. 



With all the growth of knowledge, with 

 all the help of all the sciences impinging 

 on our own, it is yet manifest, I think, that 

 the biologists of to-day are in no self-satis- 

 fied and exultant mood. The reasons and 

 the reasoning that contented a past genera- 

 tion call for reinquiry, and out of the old 

 solutions new questions emerge; and the 

 ultimate problems are as inscrutable as of 

 old. That which, above all things, we 

 would explain baffles explanation ; and that 

 the living organism is a living organism 

 tends to reassert itself as the biologist's 

 fundamental conception and fact. Nor 

 will even this concept serve us and suffice 

 us when we approach the problems of con- 

 sciousness and intelligence and the mystery 

 of the reasoning soul ; for these things are 

 not for the biologist at all, but constitute 

 the psychologist's scientific domain. 



In wonderment, says Aristotle, does phi- 

 losophy begin,^ and more than once he 

 rings the changes on the theme. Now, as 



"'•Met.," I., 2, 982&, 12, etc. 



in the beginning, wonderment and admira- 

 tion are the portion of the biologist, as of 

 all those who contemplate the heavens and 

 the earth, the sea, and all that in them is. 



And if wonderment springs, as again 

 Aristotle tells us, from ignorance of the 

 causes of things, it does not cease when we 

 have traced and discovered the proximate 

 causes, the physical causes, the efficient 

 causes of our phenomena. For beyond and 

 remote from physical causation lies the 

 end, the final cause of the philosopher, the 

 reason why, in the which are hidden the 

 problems of organic harmony and auton- 

 omy and the mysteries of apparent pur- 

 pose, adaptation, fitness and design. Here, 

 in the region of teleology, the plain ration- 

 alism that guided us through the physical 

 facts and causes begins to disappoint us, 

 and intuition, which is of close kin to 

 faith, begins to make herself heard. 



And so it is that, as in wonderment does 

 all philosophy begin, so in amazement does 

 Plato tell us that all our philosophy comes 

 to an end.^° Ever and anon, in presence 

 of the magnolia naturce, we feel inclined to 

 say with the poet: 



ov yap Ti vvv ye Kd%^^?, d\X ael irore 

 ^y Tavra KO^Sels oTdev i^ 6tov (pdvrj. 



' ' These things are not of to-day nor yester- 

 day, but evermore, and no man knoweth 

 whence they came." 



I will not quote the noblest words of all 

 that come into my mind; but only the les- 

 ser language of another of the greatest of 

 the Greeks : ' ' The ways of His thoughts are 

 as paths in a wood thick with leaves, and 

 one seeth through them but a little way." 

 D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson 



PROSPECTIVE POPULATION OF THE 



UNITED STATES 

 Various estimates of the probable or pos- 

 sible future population of the United States 

 '° Of. Coleridge, ' ' Biogr. Lit. ' ' 



