No. 559] DOCTRINES HELD AS VITALISM 



411 



as Lovejoy has recently set forth, 1,0 endeavors to mini- 

 mize the difficulties presented to the experimenter by this 

 condition of affairs, holding that " practically experi- 

 mental indeterminism is not a great danger for science." 



51. Certainly such a conclusion can not be deduced 

 from the arguments advanced by Driesch while endeav- 

 oring to establish the activity of his non-perceptual 

 agent. "Chemical and aggregative events," which he 

 holds to be the sphere of operation of entelechy, com- 

 prise most of the events taking place in organisms, and 

 if ' ' entelechy is able ... to suspend for as long a period 

 as it wants any one of all the reactions which are pos- 

 sible with such compounds as are present, and which 

 would happen without entelechy," etc., no experiment in 

 biology fails to present the conditions for the interfer- 

 ence of entelechy. Hence the experimenter must always 

 be in doubt as to whether it is worth while to search for 

 preceding perceptual differences determining different 

 results in two experiments. Just so far as it does pre- 

 sent such difficulties for experimentation, and no farther, 

 is there basis for such a determining activity of a non- 

 perceptual agent as set forth in Driesch 's vitalism. 



52. But is there reason to believe that if we could actu- 

 ally perceive all potentially perceptual diversities, we 

 should really ever find that two systems identical in all 

 perceptual factors behave differently? To me it ap- 

 pears that there is none; and that, so far as develop- 

 ment goes, it can be asserted that for every case cited 

 in support of vitalism in which diversities of develop- 

 ment arise, definite preceding perceptual diversities can 

 be pointed out, which experimentally determine the later 

 diversities. I question whether any one would attempt 

 to cite a case in which this can not be done. If this be 

 the state of the case throughout, then empirical demon- 

 stration of experimental indeterminism is impossible, 

 for no case of it ever arises. 



53. If this be true, it seems important for forming a 



m Science, November 15 ? 1912. 



