THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLYII 



same course as before. The parallel appears to be com- 

 plete between what happens when the organism is 

 changed in ways not essential to its characteristic action, 

 and what happens when the same thing is done for an in- 

 organic combination. 



24. I therefore quite agree with Love joy that when so 

 interpreted "it is surprising that this, of itself, should be 

 regarded as violating the rule of causal uniformity." 16 

 It appears equally surprising that it should be regarded 

 as exemplifying something not common in the inorganic. 

 To formulate the laws of what happens "in terms of the 

 number and arrangement of the physical components" 

 requires, for organic and inorganic equally, that we 

 should recall that different sets of physical components 

 often give the same laws (at least in main features) ; and 

 the scientific procedure, in both fields, is to determine ex- 

 perimentally what alterations do, what do not, make a 

 difference in the particular feature in which we are in- 

 terested. Such an experimental analysis is (in large 

 measure at least) equally practicable in the non-living 

 and the living, and it has been successfully carried far in 

 the latter. I therefore do not see how vitalism of any 

 kind can be based on this state of affairs. 



2."). The vitalism of Drieseh is based, not on the gen- 

 era! principle, as interpreted above, but upon certain 

 very special conditions which he believes can be demon- 

 strated to exist in organisms, and which, in their special 

 nature, render it impossible that the organism should 

 continue to act in the "normal" way after division, ex- 

 cept as some non-perceptual agent of a peculiar char- 

 acter acts as a determining factor. The concrete reason- 

 ing leading to this view is summarized in section 42 of 

 the present paper. 



26. Resumption of the Exposition of the Work of Sci- 

 ence—After we have had certain experiences of things 

 and their interconnections, we can use these in prediction; 

 indeed, the formulated scientific statement is in most 



-Lovejoy, Science, July 21, 1911. 



