8 



PRINCIPLES OF PLANT-TERATOLOGY. 



to make an encyclopaedia; it was not even to answer the 

 question " how " such and such an abnormal structure 

 came about ; but it also lay in attempting to answer the 

 question why the " abnormal " changes occurred. The 

 title of this work indicates, in fact, a desire to give 

 both a scientific and a philosophic treatment to the 

 subject. It is well to make this attempt, although the 

 great difficulties met with render it very inadequate. 



As it should be held that the perfect way in botany 

 lies in facing the question " why ? " as well as the 

 question "how?", it is evidently necessary, in the 

 attempt to give a reason for the various teratological 

 phenomena cited, to adopt the teleological* as opposed 

 to the mechanistic attitude. And this view is sup- 

 ported hy the physiologist Pfeffer,t who says: " Owing 

 to our ignorance of the exact causal relationship of 

 the different phenomena observed, a teleological 

 explanation becomes more and more necessary, and if 

 properly used it is in its way not only perfectly justi- 

 fiable, but also capable of aiding discovery and stimu- 

 lating enquiry when applied to natural phenomena." 

 And again : " The different changes and processes 

 which go on in a living organism must necessarily 

 have a purposeful character." 



While some of the explanations attempted from this 

 point of view extend but little, if at all, beyond the 

 region of conjecture, it is, on the other hand, quite cer- 

 tain that any explanations attempted from the material- 

 istic standpoint would, in most cases, fail far more 

 hopelessly 4 



* I.e. dynamic teleological or vitalistic. 

 f ' The Physiology of Plants/ p. 9. 



X For the simple reason that they merely answer the question " how ? " ; 

 they are concerned with the phenomenon of " singular becoming " (in philo- 

 sophic parlance), not with that of " unifying causality" ; with the play of 

 chemico-physical energies, not with "entelechy." Hence, they can never give 

 a real explanation. Bergson has shown that the intellect (Avhich is the faculty 

 almost exclusively employed by the average modern scientist) is concerned 

 solely, as its proper function, with the manipulation of the inorganic world. 

 So that we need not be surprised at the failure of modern botanists to under- 

 stand the living plant and its problems. As Bergson says : " The intellect, 

 is characterised by a natural inability to comprehend life" ('Creative 

 Evolution/ chap, ii, p. 174, 1914). 



