September 5, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



341 



those which can maintain an equilibrium with 

 their environment. Of course conditions may 

 arise which disturb this equilibrium. If, then, 

 the organism possesses insufficient power of 

 compensating these new conditions, it sooner 

 or later ceases to exist. Natural selection is 

 simply the process by which such imperfectly 

 compensated living systems are eliminated. 

 The conception of a selective agency as opera- 

 tive in this process of adapting organisms to 

 ■environment is frankly anthropomorphic, and 

 hence from the standpoint of physical science 

 insufficiently exact. It is better to replace it 

 by a conception in which the organism is 

 regarded as a material system maintaining a 

 dynamic equilibrium* with the environment. 

 That the environment should have the char- 

 acter of fitness — that its processes should 

 equilibrate those of the organism — is not sur- 

 prising, is indeed self-evident. One chief aim 

 of biological science, in fact, is to show how 

 the characteristics of the organism are related 

 to, and ultimately proceed from, those of the 

 environment. 



The task of biological science is thus left 

 where we found it. To account for the char- 

 .acteristics of organisms on the basis of the 

 physico-chemical characteristics of their com- 

 ponent elements and compounds involves show- 

 ing how the characters of living beings are 

 • derived from those of the environment. To 

 do this in detail would involve retracing the 

 ■course of evolution. Obviously, this can be 

 done only in outline; but a necessary presup- 

 position of any such undertaking is that the 

 ■chemical elements which form the inorganic 

 cosmos possessed from the beginning of or- 

 ganic evolution such a constitution and such 

 modes of interaction as to render possible the 

 production of living beings. By some think- 

 ers this statement may be understood to imply 

 that life was implicit or potential in the uni- 

 verse from the very first. But to the scientific 

 investigator such a statement can have little 

 meaning, since it is remote from the possi- 

 bility of verification. He might even regard 



* Equilibrium of processes, and not simply of 

 static conditions, e. g., a whirlpool, candle-flame, 

 "Cte. 



it as one more of the many useless and dis- 

 tracting freaks of verbalism. In point of fact, 

 the course of scientific inquiry is little affected 

 by such considerations. 



From another point of view, however, such 

 a statement ceases to be a truism, and acquires 

 significance as one form of the philosophical 

 insistence on the essentially unitary nature of 

 the cosmos. The problem of vitalism is then 

 seen in a clearer light. On the interpretation 

 of natural science the evolutionary process can 

 have followed only one course. Just why evo- 

 lution has followed the course leading to the 

 present outcome is a problem for philosophy 

 rather than for science. Most scientific men 

 agree that natural science aims at describing 

 phenomena and tracing their interconnections, 

 and does not try to account for the existence 

 of nature itself. Now the problem of the 

 place of living beings in nature has both its 

 scientific and its philosophical aspects. The 

 biological vitalists have tried to account for 

 the physico-chemically unanalyzed peculari- 

 ties of organisms by assuming the existence of 

 special extra-physical vital agencies (entelech-- 

 ies and the like). Dr. Henderson's discussion 

 of this problem regards all such solutions as 

 inadmissible. Since we can not separate living 

 beings from their environment, it is clear that 

 organisms must, from the scientific point of 

 view, be considered and investigated in the 

 same manner as the environment, i. e., as the 

 rest of nature. The vitalism of Driesch and 

 Bergson is thus discountenanced, and insist- 

 ence is made on the adequacy of the physico- 

 chemical methods of investigating life-phe- 

 nomena. The author believes that the only 

 possible form of vitalism is one which re- 

 gards the entire cosmic process as in its 

 essence and from its inception biocentric in 

 character. This is obviously a philosophical 

 rather than a scientific point of view, but it 

 has the advantage of interfering in no way 

 with a scientific consideration of life or of 

 any other natural process; and in the review- 

 er's opinion also it is the only tenable form 

 which vitalism can assume. It is difficult to 

 see how scientific exception can be taken to 

 such a doctrine. It has, in fact, been held 



