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THE AMEIUCAX XATI ltALlsT [Vol. LI 



more frequently than during the nineteenth century, men 

 eminent in biology seem to quail before the complexity 

 and delicacy of the life process, and, while uttering 

 mechanistic truths about life, to offer them as sacrifices 

 to a spirit of vagueness and discouragement.^ 



It is my belief that this rejuvenation of mysticism and 

 Aristotelian teleology is due not so much to a natural ad- 

 miration on the part of biologists for obscure ways of 

 thinking, as to their neglect of modern physics and of the 

 methods of thought pursued in that science. It is the 

 purpose of this paper, which is intentionally polemical 

 in manner, to rebuke this tendency by commending to the 

 attention of biologists a general speculation concerning 

 the life process, which— although incapable of immediate 

 verification in all of its aspects— does answer the most 

 perplexing questions raised by vitalism, and at the same 

 time forms a perfectly distinct bond between biological 

 theory and tlie modern theory of matter. 



It is not improbable that the futui'c will look l)ack upon 

 contemporary theoretical biology as a reactionary phase 

 in tlie liistoi-y of the science. The great synthetic energy 

 of the Darwinian theory lias been spent, has accomplished 

 its Tiuiuiiificoiit results, but has left many tattered ends, 

 by uK-ans of wliich a few of its enemies are attempting to 

 tear down the entire sti-iiclurc once more. Even the re- 

 markable discoveries wlndi cl.H^cd under the name 

 Mendelism are sometimes tin ned .'mainst tlie mechanistic 

 conception of evolution. These discoveries, although 

 patently of fundamental importance for the theory of life- 

 processes, have as yet provided us with no new synthetic 

 instruments of thought, l)ut instead liave generated an 



ever, these concepts do fiinii-li ii- witii a iiicaiis tor the 

 analysis of species in terms of their -■(-nctic (Ictcrniiiiation 



