176 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 971 



second-hand knowledge of ecological relations. 

 The constancy as well as the complexity of 

 each pattern is the striking thing. 



I trust you see with me that there is noth- 

 ing in the mere element of fitness that is 

 peculiar to life. Any chemical reaction re- 

 quires a fitness of conditons, if we choose to 

 use the word. It is the pattern that embodies 

 elements more peculiarly biological. The 

 pattern in the world of living things at the 

 present day is complex indeed, but particularly 

 so in the higher animals, in whose evolution 

 there has been established a complexity of 

 pattern in which the woof colors of organism 

 more and more dominate the warp of outside 

 environment, or, to abandon the metaphor, in 

 the thought of Professor Matthews at the 

 recent symposium on Adaptation, the highest 

 step in the perfection of adaptation has been 

 reached by making the organism superior to, 

 adapted to, all environments; or, differently 

 put, ia the taking the immediate life condi- 

 tion environment within the organism itself. 



And now we come to the critical point in 

 our attitude toward adaptation. In the use of 

 such terms as fitness, adaptation, control of 

 environment, we invoke teleology. The objec- 

 tion has been raised, and I believe rightly, 

 that to an analysis in terms of cause and 

 effect any consideration of use, purpose, or 

 aim must be extraneous. We should in aU 

 instances differentiate between the explana- 

 tion of the phenomena and whatever teleologi- 

 cal significance may attach thereto. The 

 analysis may perhaps not necessarily be 

 directly in terms of matter and energy, but it 

 can take no cognizance of a teleology as a 

 link in the chain. I should like to discuss 

 this aspect of the adaptation problem at some 

 length, but time is inadequate. Here, how- 

 ever, we stand at the branching of the road, 

 we have a choice before us. (1) Either there 

 must be found some substitute for the term 

 adaptation that will avoid the teleological ele- 

 ment, or (2) accept a pervading life force in 

 all organisms, animal or plant, whose highest 

 development appears in human consciousness 

 and intelligence, a mind force coextensive 

 with the matter and energy of organized 



matter. Some day we may be compelled to 

 postulate a directive principle such as the 

 entelechy of Driesch, but I do not believe its 

 assumption at the present stage of knowledge 

 and analysis is necessary or helpful. Per- 

 sonally I believe that the right road leads 

 toward an ultimate analysis and recasting of 

 what we mean by adaptation. The recasting, 

 however, must needs strike deep: ideas of co- 

 operation of organs with specific functions, 

 expressing a division of labor, belong in the 

 same category. The unitary character of the 

 entire life processes and the structure as but 

 the material expression of these is it seems to 

 me the keynote that must be struck and 

 emphasized in all our analyses of life phenom- 

 ena on the side of explanation in the terms of 

 cause and effect. 



And yet I think that the belief prevailing 

 in some quarters that "all in life may be ex- 

 plained in terms of physics and chemistry errs 

 equally on the other side. Life in an organism 

 to-day is like a tapestry in which the threads 

 of warp and woof are woven into a pattern of 

 exceeding intricacy and delicacy whose weav- 

 ing has been going on since the beginnings of 

 life. You may analyze the threads of process 

 as they run in and out to-day in terms of 

 chemistry and physics, it may be, but the pat- 

 tern stands as a history of the past and the 

 weaving is still largely a secret of the ages. 

 The pattern is the problem of evolution, and 

 inheritance if you will. For me, the pattern 

 in which the life activities of any organism are 

 expressed is threefold, expressed by the words 

 adaptation, form, consciousness. No one of 

 these can I conceive as being explainable in 

 physico-chemical terms. Granting that some 

 day you may know the full chemistry (or 

 physics) of the formation of secretin and how 

 it causes the secretion of the pancreatic juice, 

 there will still remain unexplained the adapta- 

 tion. Pull knowledge of the gross and fine 

 anatomy of the face, the morphogenesis and 

 histogenesis of its development and analysis 

 of the physico-chemical processes underlying 

 these, would, it seems to me, leave still un- 

 explained the cast of feature. Even if we 

 assume that future workers will be able to tm- 



