i8 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



cats psychologized. We come here, I imagine, upon what virile truth 

 there is in the " Ding an Sich," the " Thing in Itself." 



I can not restrain my interest from going where I believe reality 

 to be. Contrariwise, I can not send it where I believe reality is not. 

 Interest and attention, like natural forces generally, take the direction 

 of least resistance ; and the places of greatest belief in reality are those 

 of least resistance for attention. With this psychological basis to go 

 on, illustration will carry us forward more surely and steadily than 

 further argument. 



The very heart of that school of biology known as materialistic, 

 or mechanistic, is its effort to interpret living beings by ascribing to 

 invisible substances or bodies, located somewhere within the germ- 

 cells and other cells of the body, reality and essentiality of a sort quite 

 unique as contrasted with the visible substances, and the organisms 

 themselves. Examine the program of this school attentively and you 

 will see that it proposes to " explain " or " express " those parts of 

 animate nature about which we know most, observationally, in terms 

 of those parts about which we know least, observationally. It is un- 

 doubtedly a quasi-inductive, semi-mystical program. 



The chemical materialist conceives certain compounds, never well- 

 known ones mark you, enzymes for example, to be thus supremely 

 endowed. The biological materialist on the other hand, ascribes this 

 exalted role to imaginary, invisible living bodies hidden deep within 

 the germ and other cells. Biology of the last three decades has be- 

 stowed mighty powers upon such bodies under the designation " de- 

 terminants." Only those familiar with the technical literature of the 

 science during this time can have any notion of the influence these 

 bodies have had. What have been, and what are the effects of such 

 conceptions on biological theory and practise? I mention only a few 

 of these. 



Nothing is more characteristic of the biological thought in highest 

 repute to-day than its disposition to look down upon all those kinds 

 of research not aimed at the elements of organisms — at "ultimate 

 problems," as the expression goes. Most of those who labor in the 

 biological vineyard but are not elementalists of some sort, will 

 appreciate what I mean, for they will have personally felt the ban 

 placed upon them by the dominant school. A few years ago one of 

 our best known American zoologists, speaking from a position of 

 national preferment in his science, reviewed comprehensively the 

 present range of zoology, and did not hesitate to pass upon the labors 

 of description and classification of animals as hardly worth while. 

 In other words, he pronounced as not worth doing, the very things 

 which an examination of the nature of the knowledge-getting process 

 shows to be absolutely fundamental steps toward an understanding of 

 living nature. 



