The Organism as a Whole

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

I. The physical researches of the last ten years have put the atomistic theory of matter and electricity on a definite and in all probability permanent basis. We know the exact number of molecules in a given mass of any substance whose molecular weight is known to us, and we know the exact charge of a single electron. This permits us to state as the ultimate aim of the physical sciences the visualization of all phenomena in terms of groupings and displacements of ultimate particles, and since there is no discontinuity between the matter constituting the living and non-living world the goal of biology can be expressed in the same way.

This idea has more or less consciously prevailed for some time in the explanation of the single processes occurring in the animal body or in the explanation of the functions of the individual organs. Nobody, not

even a scientific vitalist, would think of treating the process of digestion, metabolism, production of heat, and electricity or even secretion or muscular contraction in any other than a purely chemical or physicochemical way; nor would anybody think of explaining the functions of the eye or the ear from any other standpoint than that of physics.

When the actions of the organism as a whole are concerned, we find a totally different situation. The same physiologists who in the explanation of the individual processes would follow the strictly physicochemical viewpoint and method would consider the reactions of the organism as a whole as the expression of nonphysical agencies. Thus Claude Bernard,' who in the investigation of the individual life processes was a strict mechanist, declares that the making of a harmonious organism from the egg cannot be explained on a mechanistic basis but only on the assumption of a "directive force." Bernard assumes, as Bichat and others had done before him, that there are two opposite processes going on in the living organism: (1) the phenomena of vital creation or organizing synthesis; (2) the phenomena of death or organic destruction. It is only the destructive processes which give rise to the physical manifestations by which we judge life, such as respiration and circulation or the activity of glands, and so on.

1 Bernard C., Leçons sur les Phénomènes de la Vie. Paris, 1885, i.,

The work of creation takes place unseen by us in the egg when the embryo or organism is formed. This vital creation occurs always according to a definite plan, and in the opinion of Bernard it is impossible to account for this plan on a purely physicochemical basis.

There is so to speak a pre-established design of each being and of each organ of such a kind that each phenomenon by itself depends upon the general forces of nature, but when taken in connection with the others it seems directed by some invisible guide on the road it follows and led to the place it occupies. . . .

We admit that the life phenomena are attached to physicochemical manifestations, but it is true that the essential is not explained thereby; for no fortuitous coming together of physicochemical phenomena constructs each organism after a plan and a fixed design (which are foreseen in advance) and arouses the admirable subordination and harmonious agreement of the acts of life. . . .

We can only know the material conditions and not the intimate nature of life phenomena. We have therefore only to deal with matter and not with the first causes or the vital force derived therefrom. These causes are inaccessible to us, and if we believe anything else we commit an error and become the dupes of metaphors and take figurative language as real. . . . Determinism can never be but physicochemical determinism. The vital force and life belong to the metaphysical world.

In other words, Bernard thinks it his task to account for individual life phenomena on a purely physicochemical basis-but the harmonious character of the

organism as a whole is in his opinion not produced by the same forces and he considers it impossible and hopeless to investigate the "design." This attitude of Bernard would be incomprehensible were it not for the fact that, when he made these statements, the phenomena of specificity, the physiology of development and regeneration, the Mendelian laws of heredity, the animal tropisms and their bearing on the theory of adaptation were unknown.

This explanation of Bernard's attitude is apparently contradicted by the fact that Driesch' and v. Uexküll," both brilliant biologists, occupy today a standpoint not very different from that of Claude Bernard. Driesch assumes that there is an Aristotelian "entelechy" acting as directing guide in each organism; and v. Uexküll suggests a kind of Platonic "idea" as a peculiar characteristic of life which accounts for the purposeful character of the organism.

v. Uexküll supposes as did Claude Bernard and as does Driesch that in an organism or an egg the ultimate processes are purely physicochemical. In an egg these processes are guided into definite parts of the future embryo by the Mendelian factors of heredity-the so-called genes. These genes he compares to the foremen for the different types of work to be

'Driesch, H., The Science and Philosophy of the Organism. 2 vols. The Gifford Lectures, 1907 and 1908.

2v. Uexküll, J., Bausteine zu einer biologischen Weltanschauung. München, 1913.