No. 559] 



DOCTRIXES HELD AS VITALISM 



413 



danger for science. 



54. There are here two main points that are of inter- 

 est in the present connection. 



(1) In the case of comparing eggs from the same or- 

 ganism, evidently the situation resulting in experimental 

 indeterminism never arises so far as the "very great 

 probability" is realized. Thus the differences in the de- 

 velopment of different cells of the sea urchin egg, or of 

 fragments of Tubularia, or of the ascidian, on which 

 Driesch bases so largely his vitalism, are all due experi- 

 mentally to perceptual differences in the conditions, so 

 that so far as experimental explanation goes, they are 

 accounted for in the same sense that any diversity of 

 action is accounted for in the inorganic world. 



The only escape from this lies in Driesch 's substitu- 

 tion of "very great probability" for certainty. The 

 special grounds for this substitution are not evident. 

 Even with regard to inorganic events, no man can say 

 absolutely that what has happened under given condi- 

 tions will "certainly" always happen under the same 

 conditions; for the only test of this is experience, and 

 some cases are not yet experienced. But no distinction 

 along this line between organic and inorganic is evident, 

 when once a "very great probability" is admitted for 

 the organic. 3S 



Those who begin by assuming intervention by a non- 

 perceptual agent might argue that under the same con- 

 ditions throughout, the purposes of entelechy would al- 

 ways be the same, hence it would always cause the same 

 things to be done under the same conditions. But this is 

 merely another way of admitting that no cases showing 

 experimental indeterminism ever occur. 



(2) With regard to eggs from diverse organisms there 

 are two main points: 



(a) The distinction made between knowing the his- 

 tory or origin, and knowing the physico-chemical consti- 



