Mechanistic Biology 257 



and indeed essential, it cannot be applied to psychology. Lastly, 

 I have pointed out how mechanistic biology has ever been regarded 

 vfxth. aversion by theology, mysticism, and idealist philosophy. 

 Democritus and Plato, Lucretius and Tertullian, de la Mettrie 

 and his anonymous antagonist, Rene Descartes and Samuel Parker, 

 and finally the Oxford Conference of 1924, all exemplify that 

 statement. The earlier mechanistic biology before the era of 

 experimental science was indeed somewhat incompatible with 

 religion, because it did not know its own limitations, nor did these 

 become apparent until quite recent times. But now that the 

 assumptions on which the triumph of mechanistic biology in the 

 last century is based have been well examined, it is seen that 

 for its own sphere it is a real triumph, but, at the same time, its 

 jurisdiction over other fields cannot be admitted. 



The biochemist and the biophysicist, therefore, can and must 

 be thorough-going mechanists, but they need not on that account 

 hesitate to say with Sir Thomas Browne, " Thus there is something 

 in us that can be without us and will be after us though indeed 

 it hath no history what it was before us and cannot tell how it 

 entered into us." 



