16 Profemor Gregg Wilson on 



Professor Arthur Thomson, in his recent G-ifford Lectures, 

 strives to show that mutations are " expressions of the ivhole 

 organism, . . . comparable to experiments in practical life, 

 solutions of problems in intellectual life, or creations in artistic 

 life. These are accomplished, as everyone knows, by molecular 

 activities in the brain and bodj^, but they are not intelligibly 

 thought of unless we conceive of the organism as a psycho- 

 physical individuality, a mind-body or body-mind, as we will." 

 And Thomson and Geddes, in their manual on "Evolution,' 

 say : " The living organism differs from any machine in its greater 

 efficiency ; and especially in this that the transfer of energy into 

 it is attended with effects conducive to further transfer and 

 retardation of dissipation. Again in this that it is a self-stoking, 

 self-repairing, self-preservative, self-adjusting, self-increasing, self- 

 producing engine." x\.nd later on they add : " We feel compelled 

 to recognize the persistence of some originative impulse within 

 the organism, which expresses itself in variation and mutation, 

 and in all kinds of creative effort and endeavour." 



Another protest against the view that mechanism is the 

 explanation of the organism is that of A. D. Darbishire,* who 

 maintains that " matter is subservient to spirit ; that structure is 

 the result of activity and not activity the result of structure." 

 "Those who hold this view do not think," he says, "that the 

 mechanistic explanation is false ; they believe that it gives a very 

 •true picture of the proximate causes of the mechanical devices 

 made use of by life." 



But perhaps the best known advocate of vitalism is the great 

 experimenter, Driesch, who has come to the conclusion that there 

 is in life a great controlling and ordering principle, which he calls 

 " entelechy."t ]3y this he attempts to explain individuality, and 

 development, regulation of the organism, regeneration, &c., &c. 

 It is regarded as constructing the organism as a man constructs a 

 machine, making use of things physical and laws physical. 



* Introduction to a Biology." London. 1917. 



i See Di-iescli'is Aberdeen (iifford Lectures on " The Science and Philo- 

 sophy of the Organism."' 



