Chapter IX: A Theory of Life36

Of the making of books on the question of Vitalism there would seem to be no end; and, following upon quite a number of others comes this handsome, well-illustrated, intensely interesting book, by one whose writings are always worth study. It purports to deal with the Origin and Evolution of Life; but, as to the first, it leaves us in no way advanced towards any real explanation of that problem on materialistic lines. As to the second, though there is a vast amount of valuable information, often illuminating and suggestive, again we confess that we fail to discover any real philosophy of that process of evolution which the author postulates. These propositions we must now proceed to justify. We can consider them from the most rigidly scientific standpoint, since, if every word or almost every word in the book were proved truth, it would not make the slightest difference to Catholic Philosophy, nor, indeed, to Theistic teachings, since in the imperishable words of Paley: "There may be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind another, between what we observe of nature and the Deity; but there must be intelligence somewhere; there must be more in nature than what we see; and, amongst the things unseen, there must be an intelligent designing Author."

The scientific writer has to remember that whilst he may explain many things, his work is a torso unless and until he has either accepted the Creator as the first Cause, which he is too often disinclined to do, or has supplied an equally satisfactory explanation, which he is permanently unable to do. On the other hand, at least some defenders of Theism in the past might well have borne in mind that, whilst we are assured of the fact of Creation, we know absolutely nothing of its mechanism save that it came about by the command of God. There is nothing in which clear thinking and clear writing are more necessary than in discussions of this kind; and too many of them are vitiated by an obvious lack of philosophical training on the part of the participants. Even in this carefully written book there are instances of this kind of thing to which we must allude before considering its main arguments.

"We know, for example, that there has existed a more or less complete chain of beings from monad to man, that the one-toed horse had a four-toed ancestor, that man has descended from an unknown ape-like form somewhere in the Tertiary." "We _know_"--that is exactly the opposite of the truth. We _know_ a thing when it is susceptible of proof according to the rigid rules of formal logic; when, to doubt it, would be to give rise to a suspicion as to our sanity; then we _know_ a thing, but not until then. Now, as to the sentence quoted, we may allow the first part to pass unchallenged with some possible demur at the use of the word "chain." The second so-called piece of knowledge was doubted by no less an authority than the late Adam Sedgwick. The third assertion plainly and distinctly is not the case; for Science _knows_ nothing whatsoever about the origin of man's body. In 1901 Branco, a distinguished palæontologist, with no Theistic leanings as far as we know, told the world that man appears on our planet as "a genuine _homo novus_," and that palæontology "knows no ancestors of man." Nor has any discovery since that date necessitated the modification of that opinion. What the writer means by saying "_We_ know" is "_I_ am convinced"; but, with the deepest respect for his undoubted position, the two things are not quite identical. "Biology, like theology, has its dogmas. Leaders have their disciples and blind followers." Wise words! They are those of the author with whom we are dealing. To say "we know" when really we only surmise is a misuse of language, just as it is also a misuse to ask the question "Does nature make a departure from its previously ordered procedure and substitute chance for law?" since the ordinary reader is all too apt to forget that "Nature" is a mere abstraction, and that to speak of Nature doing such or such a thing helps us in no way along the road towards an explanation of things.

Or again: "So far as the _creative_ power of energy is concerned, we are on sure ground." The author has a careful note on the word creation (p. 5), "the production of something new out of nothing," under which definition it is abundantly clear that energy, whilst it may be _productive_, cannot be _creative_. In fact, nothing can be _creative_ in any definite and rigid sense, save a _Creator_ Who existed from all eternity and from Whom all things arose. One more instance of loose argumentation, and we can turn to the main purport of the book. It is a link in the author's "chain" which cannot be passed without examination. Everybody is familiar with the method of proof by elimination. We set down every possible explanation of a certain occurrence; we rule out one after the other until but one is left. If we really have set down all the possible explanations, and if we are quite clear as to the fact that all those which have been excluded are legitimately put out of court, then the one remaining explanation must be the true one. It is a method of proof which has frequently been applied to the vitalistic problem, and with the greatest effect, as it is admitted by some of those who would greatly like to find a materialistic explanation for that problem (cf. _The Philosophy of Biology_, Johnstone, p. 319).

Let us see how our author employs it. What, he asks, is "the internal moving principle" in living substance? And he replies: "We may first exclude the possibility that it acts either through supernatural or teleological interposition through an externally creative power." Very well! Philosophers tell us that we can assume any position we choose for the purposes of our argument, but that ultimately we must prove that assumption or admit ourselves beaten. We look anxiously for the proof of the assumption made by our author, but absolutely no attempt is made to give one. We must be pardoned, therefore, if we hesitate to accept such an important statement on his mere _ipse dixit_. We pass on to the next elimination: "Although its visible results are in a high degree purposeful, we may also exclude as unscientific the vitalistic theory of an _entelechy_[37] or any other form of internal perfecting agency distinct from known or unknown physio-chemical energies." Why "unscientific"? Numbers of high authorities have not thought it so; and in quite recent years such eminent writers as Driesch and McDougal have written erudite works to prove this "unscientific" hypothesis. Is there any proof brought forward for _this_ assertion and its corresponding elimination?

Let us continue the quotation: "Since certain forms of adaptation which were formerly mysterious can now be explained without the assumption of an entelechy we are encouraged to hope that all forms may be thus explained." The author does not tell us what the mysterious adaptations are, nor does he offer us the explanations which, in his opinion, explain them. We cannot, therefore, criticise his views, and can only remind his readers that, because an explanation plausibly explains an occurrence, it is by no means always therefore certain to be the true explanation; it may, indeed, be wholly false.

Further, those who have been wandering for the past half-century in the fields of science have become a little wearied of "explanations," vaunted, for periods of five or ten years, as the key to open all locks, and then cast into the furnace. What the author would seem to mean by his statement is this: "I am convinced myself that we can do without a 'supernatural' explanation, and I regard as 'unscientific' any explanation which cannot be put to the test of chemistry and physics; hence I must shut the door on anything like an _entelechy_, and, that being so, it behoves me to look for some other explanation." Of course, we are putting these words into the mouth of our author; if we were dealing with the matter ourselves we should be inclined to argue that, by the eliminatory method, chemistry and physics do prove, or do help to prove, the existence of an entelechy.

With these expostulations we may turn to the writer's pronouncements on the vitalistic question which seem to us to be worthy of serious consideration. Everybody knows that there are two very diverse opinions on this topic; the one that there is, the other that there is not something more--a _plus_--in living than there is in not-living objects. In other words, that there is a difference of kind, and not merely of degree, between a stone and a sparrow. Hence the schools of thought called vitalistic and mechanistic. To most persons it has up to now seemed impossible that there could be a third school; we appeared to be confronted with what the logicians call a Dichotomy. Professor Osborn seems to us to think otherwise, though he is not wholly clear on this matter. If we are to "reject the vitalistic hypotheses of the ancient Greeks, and the modern vitalism of Driesch, of Bergson, and of others," and if, on the other hand, we are to view, as he thinks we must, the cosmos as one of "limitless and _ordered_ energy"--we have emphasised the word "_ordered_" for reasons which will shortly appear--we must clearly look out for some middle way. "_Ordered_," a purely mechanistic and materialistically realised cosmos cannot be. "_Ordered_" conditions are determined by what we agree to call "Laws"; and these, as all must admit, entail a Lawgiver.

The alternative is Blind Chance; and the author, after considering the question, agrees, as again most reasonable persons will agree, that Blind Chance is no explanation of things as they are. He quotes a modern chemist who, discussing the probability of the environmental fitness of the earth for life being a mere chance process, remarks: "There is, in truth, not one chance in countless millions of millions that the many unique properties of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and especially of their stable compounds, water and carbonic acid, which chiefly make up the atmosphere of a new planet, should simultaneously occur in the three elements otherwise than through the operation of a natural law which somehow connects them together. There is no greater probability that these unique properties should be without due cause uniquely favourable to the organic mechanism" (J. J. Henderson, 1913).

If neither of the classic points of view is tenable, what then is the explanation, if, indeed, any be possible? The author casts one brief glance down that blind-alley marked "Element Way." Does some known element or some unknown element, to which the name _Bion_ might be given, exist and form the source of the energy in living things? Radium has only been known to us for a few years; can we say that there is no such thing as Bion? Of course we cannot; but this we can say, that, if there is such an element and if it is really responsible for all the protean manifestations of life, wonderful as radium and its doings are, they must sink into nothingness beside those of this new and unsuspected entity. The author evidently does not think that this path is a profitable one to pursue, and we agree with him; so he turns his attention to the question of energy. Energy is the capacity for doing work. It is often, of course, latent, as, for example, in a cordite cartridge, which is a peaceful, harmless thing until the energy stored up in it is realised with the accompanying explosion and work is done. It is the same with a bent spring; a clock-weight when the clock is not going, and so on.

We need not develop this matter further; but one point must be alluded to, namely, the gradual exhaustion of the available energy in the changes from one manifestation to another. In all physical processes heat is evolved, which heat is distributed by conduction and radiation and tends to become universally diffused throughout space. When complete uniformity has been attained, all physical phenomena will come to an end; in other words, our solar system must come to an end, and it must have had a beginning. It is a well-known argument. Is there anything to rewind the clock which is running down before our very eyes? It was once urged that stellar collisions, and such-like things, might permit us to postulate a cyclical arrangement (and thus rearrangement) of universal phenomena; but that hypothesis does not seem to find any supporters to-day.

In his interesting book, already mentioned, Dr. Johnstone called attention to the power possessed by living matter of reversing the process; but no reversal of this kind and extent can make up for the constant degradation of energy which is taking place all round us. We mention this because it shows that "energy" cannot, in any case, afford an eternal solution, but only a temporal and therefore a limited one. No one doubts that there is energy in the living thing, nor that there are what the author calls "complexes of energies." No one, again, will quarrel with the statement that energy is first seen in the sun, in the earth, in the air, and in the water; that "with life something new appears in the universe, namely, a union of the internal and external adjustment of energy which we appropriately call an _Organism_." That "the germ is an energy complex" is no doubt an unproved hypothesis, as he admits, but is quite likely. With all these assertions we may agree, though we cannot with that which follows, namely, that energy is creative, for that such is impossible in any true sense of that word we have already tried to show.

We have now to ask ourselves in what way this energy conception of life differs from, or goes beyond, the two theories of life--mechanistic and vitalistic, which have hitherto been supposed to have exhausted the possibilities of explanation. In order to do this we must analyse the author's idea of energy and its relationship to biological processes a little more closely. He begins his study of life and its evolution by considering how nutrition and the derivation of energy can have taken place before chlorophyl had come into existence; and he very pertinently points to the _prototrophic_ bacteria as probably representing "the survival of a primordial stage of life chemistry." Thus a "primitive feeder," the bacterium _Nitrosomonas_, "for combustion ... takes in oxygen directly through the intermediate action of iron, phosphorus or manganese, each of the single cells being a powerful little chemical laboratory which contains oxidising catalysers, the activity of which is accelerated by the presence of iron and manganese. Still, in the primordial stage, _Nitrosomonas_ lives on ammonium sulphate, taking its energy (food) from the nitrogen of ammonium and forming nitrates. Living symbiotically with it is _Nitrobacter_, which takes its energy (food) from the nitrates formed by _Nitrosomonas_, oxidising them into nitrates. Thus these two species illustrate in its simplest form our law of the _interaction of an organism_ (_Nitrobacter_) _with its life environment_ (_Nitrosomonas_)" (p. 82, author's italics).

Once one has got to this stage, it is _ex hypothesi_ easy to ascend through the vegetable and animal worlds and to formulate the various laws which appear to have shaped the evolution of life and of species. We are then "within the system," but to arrive at anything worthy of the name of an explanation we have first to _get_ within the system. Even then there remains over the task of explaining how the system comes to be there to get inside of. The writer talks of his example as "the simplest form." Yet, in his own words, it is a "_powerful little chemical laboratory_," well stocked with catalysers and other potent means for carrying on its work. "Simple"! Well, no doubt comparatively simple, but in reality complex almost beyond the power of words to describe. "A chemical laboratory"! Yes; and one which performs most delicate operations. "Well stocked with catalysers"! And what are they? Most wonderful things which induce change without themselves undergoing any; discoveries of quite recent date as to which we still know but little. "Simple" seems hardly the word to apply, save in strict relation to other and higher forms. How did this laboratory come into existence? In what way did it learn to do its work? How did catalysers come to be? Was all this mere chance-medley? It is Paley's example of the watch found on the heath once more. Does it help us in any way to talk about "energy" and "complexes" of energy and "the creative force of energy"? To us it does not seem to advance matters one little bit. Either these operations of _Nitrosomonas_ are determined or they are not; either they are the result of a law or they are the result of blind chance; in either case the energy which is involved must act according to the conditions ordered or not ordered. In other words: if it is the dominant factor, as the writer would lead us to suppose; if there is "direction," then the action of energy must be directive; and, if it is directive, in what possible way does it differ, save in name, from the old _entelechy_ or _vital principle_, or whatever else one may choose to call it? On the other hand, if there is no such a thing as direction, if everything happens by chance, if the mechanistic theory is right, how does energy save us from complete surrender to that theory?

From all this it would appear that whilst energy is constantly being exhibited (and in all sorts of manifestations) by the living object, that does not explain anything, since it does not explain how energy originally came to be, nor how it came to work under the laws which seem to govern it. It is one more added to the long list of "explanations," which hopelessly break down because those who have put them forward have never apparently applied themselves to the task of grasping the important difference between a final and an intermediate cause.

Let us sum up this part of our author's teaching in the light of this distinction. The organism is a material complex, and all sorts of actions and reactions take place in it. They are subject to the laws of physics, and notably to those relating to energy and its transformations. It has internal energies which must be adjusted to one another and not less to those around it; that is to say, it must be more or less in harmony with its environment. There are the problems of germ-plasm, and its transmission; the effect on it, if any, of the body, and the reaction of the body to its environment. There are also the catalysers of which we have spoken, with many problems associated with them, and throwing a possible and unexpected light on the vexed question of Vitalism and the Conservation of Energy. There are all these things, manifestations of energy; there is the watch, and it is going. But, as we remarked elsewhere, the fact that we have learned that the resiliency of the spring in the watch makes it "go" does not exhaust the explanation of the watch any more than the fact that we know something of the actions and reactions of energy in the organism exhausts its explanation. The watch is "going"; so is the organism. Each of them, in a sense, is a "wonderful little laboratory" in which manifestations of energy are constantly taking place. The watchmaker constructed the watch for that purpose; who or what constructed the organism? Darwin and the Darwinians would have said--Natural Selection. In fact, Darwin rather lamented that "the old argument from design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails now that the law of Natural Selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of Natural Selection, than in the course which the wind blows." There again Darwin fell into a mistake, because he confused an intermediate with a final cause. Even if Natural Selection were all that the most ultra-Darwinian could claim it to be, it could not, as Driesch and others have shown, exhaust the explanation of the organism.

As a matter of fact the world of science is very far from thinking of Natural Selection as anything more than a factor, perhaps even a minor factor, in evolution. The author of the work with which we are dealing tells us that "Darwin's law of selection as a natural explanation of the origin of _all_ fitness in form and function has lost its prestige at the present time, and all of Darwinism which now meets with universal acceptance is the _law of the survival of the fittest_, a limited application of Darwin's great idea as expressed by Herbert Spencer." But let that pass. In another place the author makes it clear that the explanations of to-day, including his own, do _not_ exhaust the subject, for he says "it is incumbent on us to discover the _cause_ of the orderly origin of every character. The nature of such a law we cannot even dream of at present, for the causes of the majority of vertebrate adaptations remain wholly unknown." In any case we must account for Natural Selection; for if it is a Law--as some doubt--it must have had a Lawgiver. The watch must have been an Idea in some one's mind before it became an accomplished fact, and Natural Selection or any other "Law of Nature" must--unless all reason is nonsense and all nonsense reason--also have been an Idea before it became a factor. Whose Idea? Our author does not help us to answer this question. On the contrary--he tries to set an unclimbable fence in the way of any answer by telling us, though without any convincing argument to support his statement, that we may "exclude the possibility that it" [the internal moving principle] "acts either through supernatural or teleological interposition through an externally creative power." But though he refuses to allow us to look in this direction for a solution of our difficulties, it must be confessed that he does not help us with any other answer satisfying the question of the origin and evolution of Life.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 36: _The Origin and Evolution of Life; or, the Theory
of Action, Reaction, and Interaction of Energy._ By F. H.
Osborn. (G. Bell & Sons.)]

[Footnote 37: By _entelechy_--an Aristotelian term
re-introduced by Driesch--is meant an agency other than one of
a purely chemico-physical character, which differentiates
living from not-living substance, and is responsible for the
phenomenon of life.]

* * * * *

INDEX OF NAMES

Agassiz, 142

Allen, Grant, 85

Aquinas, St. Thomas, 60, 147, 153

Austen, Miss, 32

Avicenna, 153

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 116

Bassi, Laura, 155

Bateson, W., F.R.S., 4, 7, 11, 118, 150

Bax, Belfort, 37

Benson, Mgr., 84, 88, 94, 101

Bergson, 151, 166

Bernhardi, 20

Borden, Sir Robert, 122

Branco, 162

Buffon, 100

Butler, Samuel 44, 61

Chesterton, G. K., 113

Clodd, E., 86

Conklyn, 23

Cowper, 37

Crichton-Browne, 20

Cuvier, 142

Darwin, 116, 131, 150, 173

Devas, Mr. 27, 120

Dewar, Prof. Sir J., F.R.S., 113

Doyle, Sir A. C., 46, 51

Driesch, 4, 7, 24, 69, 164, 166, 173

Fallopius, 96, 144

Fielding, 31

Gosse, E., 39

Gosse, Philip, 98

Grant Allen, 85

Healy, Father--Tale of, 40

Henderson, J. J., 167

Henslow, 24

Hull, Fr. E., S.J., 103

Huxley, 74, 98, 101, 117

Johnson, Dr. 48, 161, 168

Joly, Prof., F.R.S., 110

Kelvin, Lord, 151

Lankester, 15

Lauder, Harry, 2

Leduc, 2, 62

Lodge, Sir O., 3, 85

Loeb, J,. 58, 62

Lucas, E. V., on the War, 47

Mcdougal, 164

Mahaffy, Sir John, 111

Marett, 15, 16

Masefield, 48

Mendel, 75, 135

Milton, 145

Mivart, Prof., 96

Needham, John Turberville, 154

Newman, 33, 38

Newton, The Rev. J., 38

Nietzsche, 19

Osborne, Prof., 160

Paley, 160

Pasteur, 157

Perkin, Prof. W. H., 107

Pouchet, 157

Priestley, 156

Redi, Francisco, 153

Richardson, 31

Rignano, 25, 62

Ryder, Dr., 51

Sabatier, 113

Schwann, Theodor, 157

Scott, Prof., 142

Scott, The Rev. Thomas, 38

Sedgwick, Adam, 162

Spallanzani, Lazaro, 155

Stensen, Nicolaus, 75, 97, 99

Tilden, Sir William, 64

Tyson, Edward, 77

Wasmann, 26, 150

Wells, H. G., 49

Whiffen, 20

GENERAL INDEX

Adam, 146

Adrenals, 63

"After-Christians," 120

Aggressive mimicry, 123

Albino race, An, 128

Amazonian Indians, 20

"Anatomie of a Pygmie," 77

Ancestral peculiarities, 133

Aniline dyes, 107

Arrangement, 8, 137

Bacteria, Prototrophic, 169

Badische Aniline Fabrik, 106, 109

Bathybius, 98

Bion, 167

Blind Chance, 166

Bondage of Knowledge, The, 84

Botanic Garden, 131

Breeding Committees, 119

Breeding True, 126

Bricks and Builders, 139

"Bugbear of Hell," 21, 119

Calvinism, 32

Cartesian idea of the soul, 69

Catalysts, 113, 170

Celibacy, 120

Cell-Theory, The, 157

Chance-Medley, 134

Chromatin, 130

Colloids, 62

"Continuity," 46

Conversion, 34

Cowardice, Alleged, of Catholic Scientists, 99

Creation, 163;
a method of, 144

"Criticisms on the Pentateuch," 45

"Cutting up of Frogs," 115

Cytolysis, 65

"Dabney, Mr.," 47

Defence of the Realm Act, 82

Degradation of Energy, 168

Derivative Creation, 146

Discontinuity, 3

"Ducks and Drakes," 156

Duck's Egg, 125, 130

Dye-stuffs, 107

Elimination, Proof by, 163

Energy, 16

Energy, Degradation of, 169

Entelechy, 164, 171

Eskimo, 19

"Esmond," 31

"Essays and Reviews," 45

Eugenics, 117

Evangelicanism, 32, 33, 44

Exhibitions, International, of 1851 and 1862, 10

Extermination of the Less Fit, 122

Families, Restricted, 118

"Father and Son," 39

"Force and Energy, a Theory of Dynamics," 85

"Force of Truth, The," 38

Formaldehyde, 2

Fossils, Explanation of, 97

Free First Cause, 144, 151

Freethinkers and "tolerance, justice, and gentleness," 73

Germination, 65

Guide, the Church a, 92

Hapsburg lip, The, 127

Harmonious-Equipotential System, 69

Heredity in the Law Courts, 29

Hormones, 63

Horse, Pedigree of the, 161

Imprimatur, The, 77

In-and-in breeding, 127

Index Prohibitorius, 95

Industrial Scientific Research, Department of, 114

Inheritance:
Chemical theory, 134;
Mnemic theory, 5, 61, 133;
Particulate theories, 61, 132

Jack, Jill, and Joan, 119

Jungle, The law of, 122

King-crabs, 145

Lamp-shells, 145

Law and Heredity, The, 129

Law and Lawgiver, 9

Law of Nature, 174

Law's "Serious Call," 31

Liberty, personal, 87

"Life and Habit," 61

Life, Origin of, 160

"Little Dorrit," 112

"Loss and Gain," 33

Maggots in meat, 153

Man's pedigree, 161

"Marriage," 49

Mauve, 107

Mediate Creation, 147

Memory, unconscious, 5

Mendelism, 6

Method of Creation, 144, 161

Micromeristic theories, 5

Mimicry, 123

Mnemic Theory of Inheritance, The, 5, 61, 133

Monastic Orders, 121

Monophyletic evolution, 151

"Multitude and Solitude," 48

"Naturalism and Agnosticism," 57

Natural Selection, 19, 122, 173

"Nature does this," 136, 162

Nature's insurgent son, 15

"New Republic, The," 56

"New Revelation, The," 46, 51

Nitrobacter, 170

Novels and Novelists, 30

"Occam's" razor, 29

Occultism, 28, 51

Ordered energy, 166

"Organism as a whole," 38

Origin of Species, 150

"Over Bemertons," 47

Oxford Movement, 33

"Pamela," 32

Pangenesis, 61, 131

Pantheism, 9

"Paradise Lost," 145

"Parson Adams," 31

Particulate Theories of Inheritance, 61, 132

Personal Liberty, 81

"Philosophy of Biology, The," 163

Phylogeny, 4, 149

Plymouth Brethren, 99

Political leaders of the day, 114

Polyphyletic hypothesis, The, 150

Porto Santo rabbits, 148

Post-Christians, 27

Prototrophic bacteria, 169

Providentissimus Deus, 103

Pugs and Greyhounds, 126

Purposefulness: a strange confession as to, 59

"Raymond," 51

Resiliency, 172

Restricted families, 118

Sabbatarianism, 36

Salaries of Scientific Teachers, 112

Saurians, 145

Science, Catholic Men of, 75-6

Science, Neglect of, at Schools, 109

Sin, Mythical Ideas of, 123

Six-fingered race, A, 128

Slavery in the State, 24

"Slime of the Earth," 146

"Social Vermin," 118

"Some Revelations as to 'Raymond,'" 53

Special Creation, 142

Spermatozoon, 65

Spiritualism and the War, 50

Spontaneous Generation, 152

Springs in the watch, The, 172

"Stinks Men," 110

Survival of the Fittest, 122

Syngamy, 65

Synthetic drugs, 107

Telepathy, 2

Teratomata, 65

Theophobia, 26

Thermos flask, The, 113

"Throws back," 128

Trilobites, 145

Trinity College, Dublin, 110

"Tyranny" of the Church, 91

Uncle Remus and the rabbit's tail, 127

Unconscious Memory, 5, 61

Universities, Mediæval, 75

Vitalism and Anti-Vitalism, 68, 165

"Way of All Flesh, The," 44

"Wisdom, Book of," 123

Wolff's Experiment, 69

* * * * *

PRINTED BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

* * * * *

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:

page 85

years in investigating. The man who sets out to make a
research, without first acertaining[ascertaining] what others
have done in that direction, proposes to

page 121 (Footnote 32)

Conklyn, _Heredity and Environment in the Development of
Men_. Princetown[Princeton] University Press, 1915.

page 136

mere personification and means either chance-medley or a
Creator, according to the old dilemna.[dilemma] There is a
very curious example of this inability

page 153:

We come to close quarters with the question itself in 1668,
when Franceso[Francesco] Redi (1626-1697) published his book
on the generation of insects