NOTES AND LITERATURE. 
GENERAL BIOLOGY. 
Organic Regulations. — Hans Driesch publishes, under the title 
of Die organischen Regulationen, a pamphlet of 228 pages which 
deals with a number of organic phenomena, some of which are better 
known as adaptations, others as restitution of form and of function. 
The subordinate title of the paper, ** Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie 
des Lebens,” indicates the ambitious aim of the author. 
The contents are arranged under three headings: I, Descriptive 
Part ; II, Theoretical Part ; III, Critique of Knowledge. 
I. In the first part we find a description given of metabolic regula- 
tions (adaptations), of morphological adjustments to the environment, 
and of restitution or restorative regulative processes. An attempt is 
made to sift out the essential features of these phenomena. 
IL In the theoretical part the different kinds of regulations are 
classified, the relation between regulations and stimuli is discussed, 
and an analysis of form regulation is attempted. Under this same 
heading a section is entitled * Thoughts on Respiration and Assimi- 
lation." Here an hypothesis of the “real” meaning of the process 
of oxidation in organisms is suggested, and a curious inquiry is made 
into the fundamental but almost unknown field of assimilation. 
Then follow two “proofs” of vitalism, or, as the author prefers to 
call the latter, “ The Autonomy of the Life-Processes.” 
The first proof of the autonomy of the life process is an extension 
of the same argument previously employed by Driesch, and deals 
with “The Differentiation of Harmonic Equipotential-Systems,” or, 
more simply, with the formation of a new whole organism from a piece 
of an egg or from a piece of an original organism, — the piece having 
in both cases the potencies of the original whole in all its parts. 
The second proof of vitalism is found in “The Genesis: and . Exist- 
ence of Equipotential Systems with Complex Explicit. Potencies.” 
The author believes “it is impossible that a complicated structure 
(Tektonic) made up of many definitely arranged parts ( Specifitaten) 
1 Driesch, Hans. Die organischen Regulationen : Vorbereitungen zu einer 
Theorie des Lebens. Leipzig, W. Engelmann, 1901. 228 pp. Jone 
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