No. 554] ADAPTATION IN LIVING 



but is highly disadvantageous to the plant; we must as- 

 sume, indeed, by way of explanation, that the insect suc- 

 ceeded in deluding the plant, so that instead of treating 

 the insect as an enemy and an intruder it behaved towards 

 it as if it were a bit of itself." 



I think it is perfectly clear that the non-biologieal sci- 

 ences have all passed through a much earlier stage in 

 which purposeful adaptations were seriously considered, 

 • and it seems quite as clear that such concepts are not any 

 longer accepted in the serious studies of these sciences. 

 There seems also to be no doubt that the biological sci- 

 ences, notably in their physiological aspects, are tending 

 at the present time more and more to adopt a non-teleo- 

 logical point of view. From these points I again draw 

 the conclusion that ours is a developmental]}' young sci- 

 ence, that it still retains features of its early youth, and 

 that the concept of purposeful adaptation is one of these 

 features, sooner or later to be totally abandoned, even as 

 the same concept has alreadv been abandoned bv the 

 other natural sciences. 



If my conclusion should be wrong, then one of two 

 propositions must follow : either the sciences of the non- 

 living have fallen into error, ought to have retained the 

 concept of purpose in natural phenomena, and will sooner 

 or later return to this concept; or else there is a great 

 and fundamental difference between the living and the 

 non-living, and teleology has a logical place in considera- 

 tions of the former objects but not in those of the latter. 

 Although it is to be realized that the possibility of one or 

 the other of these propositions can not be rigidly denied 

 at the present time, yet the probability of either one is 

 definitely decreased by every analytical conquest of sci- 

 ence. The controversy here suggested — which seems in 

 our time as wastefully to absorb our energies as did the 

 discussion of special creation in the time of Charles Dar- 

 win—is characterized by this peculiar feature, that, while 



ously based upon our ignorance and present inability to 



