BBITTSH ASSOCIATION: ZOOLOGICAL SECTION. 353 



Aristotle, of Harvey, of Caspar F. Wolff, and of Von Baer) is now 

 discussed again, in altered language, but as a pressing question of the 

 hour ; the very foundations of the cell-theory have been scrutinized 

 to decide (for instance) whether the segmented ovum, or even the 

 complete organism, be a colony of quasi-independent cells, or a living 

 unit in which cell differentiation is little more than a superficial 

 phenomenon ; the whole meaning, bearing, and philosophy of evolu- 

 tion has been discussed by Bergson, on a plane to which neither 

 Darwin nor Spencer ever attained ; and the hypothesis of a Vital 

 Principle, or vital element, that had lain in the background for near 

 a hundred years, has come into men's mouths as a very real and urgent 

 question, the greatest question for the biologist of all. 



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-satisfied and exultant mood. The 

 reasons and the reasoning that contented a past generation call for 

 re-inquiry, 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 sufiice us when we approach the problems of 

 consciousness 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 philosophy begin,* and 

 more than once he rings the changes on the theme. Now, as in the 

 beginning, wonderment and admiration 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 autonomy and the mysteries of apparent purpose, 

 adaptation, fitness, and design. Here, in the region of teleology, the 

 plain rationalism 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.f Ever and anon, in presence of the magnalia natures, we feel 

 incline to say with the poet : 



C^Y) raiiira, y.ovOiE<; oTbiv e^ otov ^cjicivYi. 



'-• Met. i. 2, 982 6, 12, &c. f Cf. Coleridge, Biogr. Lit. 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. XV., September, 1911, 2 e 



