The Science and Philosophy of the Organism

1 For literature see the work of Jennings referred to at page 17, note 1. unknown conditions of the physiological state of the organism. But there is acting, if the first time the reactions A, B, and C have answered to the stimulus a one after the other, and if the second time C answers to it without any delay, it being understood of course that it was C that had produced a " liking " or had overcome a " disliking " on the part of the organism : that is what actually happens in Stentor, and is very important as being a case of experience in a simple motor act. Primitive forms of experience relating to motorial combinations can be studied most advantageously in Crustacea. In Yerkes's " labyrinth " experiment a crab was placed in a box containing two different tracks, only one of which led to the water. The crab ran at random for a while, until at the end of many " trials " it found the entrance to the water ; the second time the path to the water was taken with much fewer mistakes, and at the end of a set of experiments the crab ran to the water directly without going wrong. Here we have a most typical case of " experience " in which the " effect " of previous motor stimuli is concerned, and it hardly matters at all, whether we assume that the crab was guided by sight or that it was guided by some spatial memory, unknown to us, such as we have supposed to exist in some insects. Experience here consisted in the omission of a set of previous reactions in favour of the last effective one occurring in a series of con secutive stimulations. In another set of experiments carried out by Spaulding the facts lay a little differently. A hermit crab was fed with pieces of fish placed under a green screen, and after a certain number of experiments it ran beneath the green screen even if no piece was there. Similar experiments have been carried out by the pupils of

the Eussian physiologist Pawlow with dogs.1 In all these cases a certain reaction, originally caused by the stimulus A, is in the end called forth by a stimulus B that always was united with A. Whilst in the instance with the crab shortening its way to the water there was a very clear kind of trial, there is not trial in the second experiment. Both experiments offer good instances of the two fundamental characters of our historical basis : in the first it is not only former stimuli but former effects also that are responsible for the specificity of the reaction, in the second it is former stimuli only.

A fine instance of real " training " by means of " lessons " has been demonstrated by Jennings in his excellent paper on the movements of the starfish, already referred to. " Training " relates to the righting movements in this case ; former stimuli, former reactions, and former effects are equally concerned here. And now let us close our long discussions of animal motions with some remarks of a most general character. 1 But here the process influenced by association is not movement but secretion of the salivary glands. Compare in particular, besides the writings of Pawlow himself, the good article by Boldyreff in Zeitschr. f. d. Ausbau d. Entw.-lehre, vol. i., 1907, Hefte 5 and 6.

2 Compare our general discussion on pages 63-65. In the experiment de scribed by Yerkes the term " trial and error" as used by Jennings is quite appropriate : what was at first the effect of a series of trials including errors will become the immediate reaction when the stimulus appears a second time. But it seems to me unjustified to speak of trial and error when there is no objectified experience, and when a series of consecutive various reactions only ceases if a certain state is reached : this state may be a " liked " one, but there is no criterion to discover this in lower animals. What Jennings calls the "resolution of the physiological states one into another" expresses about the same as does my "historical basis of reaction." But Jennings is wrong when he says that this "resolution" only becomes "easier and

In analysing acting we have become convinced that, on account of the individualised correspondence between cause and effect, founded on a basis historically created, we are not able to explain what is going on by the aid of physics and chemistry, or of mechanics, if you prefer to say so. There is a new and autonomic natural factor concerned in action, a factor unknown to the inorganic world. Now it is very important to notice well, that by stating the autonomy of natural events as occurring in action we are in fundamental contradiction with a wide-spread theory that is at present very much in vogue among psychologists. I refer to the theory of " psycho-physical parallelism." ] At least we are in a fundamental contradiction with one side of this theory. All of you know, I suppose, what that theory claims, and I can dismiss it the more briefly since Professor James Ward, a few years ago, gave a splendid sketch of the different aspects of the theory of psychophysical parallelism in this very place.

The theory of parallelism may start from a metaphysical basis by saying that the psychical and the physical facts are but different aspects of one unknown absolute reality, standing in permanent correspondence with each other, as was the opinion of Spinoza and his followers, though sometimes stated in a more materialistic form. Or the more rapid " with each repetition : there are links left out of the chain, and that is most important. 1 Compare the general critical discussions in Busse, Geist und Xorper, tieele und Leib, Leip/ig, 1903. See also H. Bergson, "Le paralogisme psycho-physiologique," Rev. mttaph. et m&r. 12, No. 6, 1904, and the book Mature et M&noire (1896), by the same author.

parallelistic theory may be put upon an idealistic1 and phenomenological basis, stating that the " Given," as being objectified in space on the one hand, and as being immediate self-experience on the other, shows a complete correspond ence of the elements of its two sides, there being not a single element of the one side without a correlated element on the other. In either case the advocates of the theory of parallelism have held that the physical side of their duality forms a continuous chain of strictly physico-chemical or mechanical events without any gap in it. That has by no means been proved by the defenders of the parallelistic theory, but it generally has been regarded as self-evident without any further reflection.

There can be no doubt that we cannot agree with these statements regarding the physical part of the parallelistic theory in any of its usual forms : we have shown that there is not at all an unbroken mechanical chain of events in action as a phenomenon of motion, that there is a mutual relation between factors which are mechanical or physicochemical and factors which are of quite another elemental character. But it must be well kept in mind : we do not speak of " psycho "-physical interactions in spite of that ; our funda-

1 In one of the next chapters it will be shown that parallelism on an idealistic basis is a simple absurdity. We wish to say in passing that even metaphysically parallelism has always proved and always will prove to be quite an impossible statement in our opinion. How could a mere sum or addition, as the physical side of the supposed reality is maintained to be, appear " from its other side" as a something that is quite certainly not such a mere addition? Pai^lleiiaiiL.n.ciwadays seems to be almost wholly ,4riyen out of the field. Even Wundt is no longer a convinced parallelist. That Kant never was a parallelist is proved in my book Der Vitalismus als Geschichte und als Lehre. See in particular the additions made to the Italian translation.

mental point of view, which is critical idealism, forbids us to say so, at least as long as we are not metaphysicians. Our statements regarding action refer to natural events in space and to such events only : there are factors contrary to mechanics in these natural events, but these factors are " natural " factors too ; they belong to " physics " in the sense of the ancients, though not to physics in the modern sense. Our " psychoid " in this sense is a factor of ra (f>v(Ti,fcd, an agent or factor of nature, looked upon as part of Givenness.

From our idealistic standpoint, as long as it is nonmetaphysical, " psychology " and the " psychical " belong exclusively among the self-experiences of the Ego. The question now arises, if from such a point of view there might not be room for a parallelism of quite a new type, very strange perhaps at the first glance : a parallelism of " my Ego " and " my psychoid " as a natural factor at work in my body. Perhaps that would only be a parallelism of a methodological sort that might be called doctrinaire. Let us only note for the present that, for the sake of analytical clearness, my Ego and my psychoid, as my object of reflec tion, may in fact be regarded as being in activity " parallel " with respect to one another. A special chapter of our future lectures will be devoted to the deeper elucidation of the relations between idealistic philosophy and vitalism in its most general sense.

At any rate we must deny the claim of parallelism that there is an unbroken mechanical chain of events in acting, and we must deny " psycho "-physical interaction also, if we wish not to become metaphysicians. By our nonmetaphysical point of view we avoid, of course, all the difficulties of how there ever could be an "interaction" between two entities of such absolutely different kinds as the " psyche " and the physical reality in space. It is well known that it was especially these difficulties which led Spinoza to his dogmatic parallelism, Leibniz to his doctrine of monads, and Berkeley and Kant to their idealistic theories of different styles. From our present' point of view we only recognise " interactions " between physico - chemical and non - physico - chemical agents of nature.

These short remarks form one of the ends of our discussion of acting, and at the same time one of the ends of our long discussion of problems of analytical natural science altogether. The next lecture will bring us into the realm of the real philosophy of nature. But still another end must be given to our theory of action : let us say a few words about the role of acting in history, and about what may follow therefrom. That human history is throughout based on acting needs no further explanation, and indeed finds its proper expression in the concept of the " historical " basis of reacting, as being one of the foundations of action : the individual history of the acting man is responsible for the specificity of what he will do. That speaking and writing are the most fundamental factors, upon which the history of generations builds itself up, also needs only to be shortly mentioned.

of human history in general, as discussed in the last lecture of last summer. Does history teach us that there are concerned in true historical states and events any elemental agents or factors or laws which are additional to what is said in the fundamental formula of individual acting, resting upon its two familiar principles ? The answer to this question is given by our analysis of history : by proving that the history of mankind seems to be a mere process of cumulation only, a process by which one complication is simply added to the other without there being, as far as we know, the " evolution " of a real unity. By proving this we express at the same time that in the State, in religion, in science, in law, in economics we only meet cumulations of acting and their results, but no new elementalities. So-called " philosophies " of the State or of law, as created most profoundly by Hegel, therefore, are philosophical branches of the second order ; they stand to the philosophy of action in the same relation as geology stands to chemistry and physics. State and law are no " entities," as far as we know, to speak in an ontological terminology. The State is not an " organism "- — strange to say, for so very often in modern literature the real biological organism was pretended to be " explained " on the analogy of the State ! Even the so-called " States " of bees and ants are real organisms only to a very small degree and not in detail.

be called an organism in itself, it would be required that disturbances of this organism should be repaired by force of the whole. But nothing of this sort exists : there are " regulations " in social life, as, for instance, when a business that needs workers attracts them by offering better payment, whilst an overcrowded business readily parts with work people : but all this happens for the sake of the individuals liking and happiness, and for no other reason, as far as we know. There certainly is a little more of real organisation in the " State " of Hymenoptera.

But now let us ask another more general question : Does anything new appear in nature besides mere acting, when there is not one single acting human being, but a community, or at least two human beings on the scene ? Such a new factor, of course, would play its part in social life, though not in a properly " historical " sense. We may also ask like this : Is a really complete philosophy of acting already created or at least prepared by the analysis we have given of it ? It seems to me that one chief thing is wanting still for such a preparation, and that this chief thing is the elemental entity that is concerned in historical and social becoming, besides the two principles of acting we have analysed.

Entelechy in morphogenesis, metabolism, and instinctive life tends to guarantee the specificity of form and function ; entelechy in acting, our psychoid, guarantees the realisation of what is "liked"-— to speak a little incorrectly, but quite intelligibly — by the performer of the action. In both cases it is for the sake of the "bearer of the eutelechy that everything goes on. But if there is acting between two or more human beings there may be — I do not say that there always is — a very strange exception to this retortion on the performer himself : there may occur acting which tends not to the liking of the agent but to the normal state or the " liking " of another being. This kind of acting may even lead to the sacrifice of the agent's life in order that " the other " may be saved.

What occurs here is as contrary to entelechy as was entelechy to mechanics, though in some way it shows a certain similarity to instinct. In these few words we have sketched the character istics of morality — of morality, that is, considered as a phenomenon of bodily nature by a naturalist ; 1 and at the same time, it seems to me, we have given account of the second elemental entity, besides acting for oneself, that was still wanted in order to complete the truly elemental facts upon which the history and social life of mankind are built up. History and its results, taken by themselves, are mere cumulations, but cumulations grown up by the permanent interaction of entelechial life in all its forms and morality.

It is not unimportant to notice that the role which general morality plays, or rather which moral acting individuals play in history, might have an enormous effect even if history were proved some day to contain certain evolutionary elements. Morality in fact, as the general law regulating the actions among at least two human 1 Morality, of course, from such a point of view belongs to "nature," and is not alien to it, as is often asserted by philosophers. We shall come back to this point at the end of the book.

beings, could possibly counteract evolution and stop it. It would do so whenever " evolution " led through immoral phases. Suppose that an evolutionary process of any kind could only be effected by war or revolution, and that the majority of a people objected to war and revolution for moral reasons : then evolution would be stopped in favour of morality. We have spoken of the possibility that history might contain certain evolutionary elements. If it were evolution throughout, all " morality," of course, would be only apparent : there would in reality be no such thing as the relation between two " individuals " in this case, there would be one " super-individuum " using the biological individuals as its " means." l

Our survey of the most important theoretical results of biology as a natural science is ended ; discussion of these results as such may begin and, indeed, is to occupy us for the rest of these lectures. Nobody can blame us, I suppose, for having understood the concept of biology in too narrow a sense ; on the contrary, some people might say perhaps that too many problems have been brought by us to the court of biological natural science, such as the history and culture and morality of mankind. But biology, I think, must be taken as the natural science of all that is living and of all the phenomena

1 In this case moral feeling itself would be subjected to evolution — which, personally, I do not believe. That, otherwise, all sorts of cumulations are able to be stopped by morality is too obvious to require further analysis. The problem of the content of morality as such lies beyond the limits of this book. offered in any way during life, as far as they can be defined as states and changes of bodies in space ; and all the facts we have discussed could be defined in this manner.

It follows from the great variety of biological subjects that biology, if understood in its full sense, comes face to face with many special sciences, borrowing something from each of them ; only then can biology be said to be complete,1 and to be a material that is well prepared for the philosophy of organic nature. 1 Only one field of problematic biological phenomena has not been taken into account altogether, as I feel quite unable to judge here personally in any way. I refer to the so-called spiritualistic phenomena. The reader may refer for this subject to the critical publications of the "Society for Psychical Research," Frank Podmore's Studies in Psychical Research (London, 1897) giving an excellent survey of the same. The only thing that seems to be established beyond all doubt is "telepathy"; and even telepathy might perhaps some day be understood as being a phenomenon of radiation comparable with wireless telegraphy. The only new thing in it would then be the faculty of man to put special parts of his brain into a special state voluntarily, as he can do with his muscles. That at least would be the most simple theory. Of course, there might be at work also something absolutely different (see the end of Podmore's book). What we have called (with Semon) engrammata would in some way be comparable with what possibly is transmitted in telepathy (see page 98).

PHILOSOPHY of nature is the demonstration of the general scheme of nature based upon the character or essence of reason. It received its modern foundation from the analytical work of Kant and his followers, though Kant himself, in his conception of the categories and the a priori, went only as far as to show by what means such a philosophy might be built up. In answering one of his fundamental questions : " Wie ist reine Naturwissenschaft moglich ? " (" How is pure natural science possible ? "), he proved that it really is possible on account of some faculties of reason referring to concepts and principles of relation in Givenness. These concepts and principles are a priori or self-evident, in other words, they cannot be denied when once understood in their meaning, albeit they do not rest solely on the logical principle of contradiction.

It was the school of Schelling and Hegel, and to some extent Schopenhauer also, that tried to develop the ideas of Kant ; but, unfortunately, the two first-named philosophers at least were not very critical in their deduction, the whole subject of a philosophy of nature becoming more or less fantastic under their hands. That has done the utmost harm to the philosophical conception of nature in our times. Philosophy of nature, in its true sense, has been discredited altogether : a period of mere empiricism followed the period of the natural philosophers ; more than that, there was not only the strong endeavour to get empirical knowledge — which might have been very useful indeed — but there was the conviction that there never could be anything more than mere empirical experience at all.

Such an opinion is still predominant in our times, and I need only mention the names of Mach, Clifford, Pearson, and Ostwald to remind you of this state of affairs, and to remind you, at the same time, that the men of science who hold the empirical view sketched above are in fact among the best representatives of science in our days. Nevertheless, it is my strongest conviction that such a conception of natural sciences is wrong and incomplete, and that the work of Schelling and Hegel was certainly true and valuable so far as its aim went. There can be a philosophy of nature resting on the foundations of criticism, and evolving a real system of nature from reason without the use of uncontrolled imagination; and there will be such a system some day, there will be a system that really deserves to be called philosophy of nature in the old sense of this term.

In this country the term " natural philosophy " has been restricted to mathematical physics, and that is certainly justified in so far as a great part of theoretical physics does in fact rest on principles that are part of a real philosophy of nature, even though physicists might not agree with this statement. But the use of the word " natural philosophy " as identical with mathematical physics must be said to be misleading in so far as there are many purely empirical principles in mathematical physics also, only the consequences of which are explained mathematically. Of course, there is nothing of a real philosophy of nature in explanations of this kind.

We shall deal in the remainder of this work with the philosophy of the organism. But do not expect a complete philosophical system of life from my future discussion. You would be very disappointed if you did so. In fact, I shall try to show you in this section of my lectures that the laws of life mmt be what they are, that reasoning forbids us to accept any other law, and that it forces us to acknowledge the actual laws, when once their meaning is understood. But I shall do so only at the end of a rather long discussion which will move, so to speak, half-way between mere systematic philosophy and theoretical science.

The time is not ripe for offering you a real complete philosophical system of the organism without a great number of preliminary discussions. At least I myself feel unable to offer you such a system without a certain amount of preparation. Therefore I shall begin with the discussion of certain fragments of a future complete system of philosophical biology, or rather with certain considerations relating to it ; and not till that has been done shall I try to sketch the outlines of what will really deserve the name of a pure philosophy of life and the organism.

Our first task is a limited one ; we must first bring the general concepts we have gained from the analysis of biological facts into connexion with parts of the philosophical system of the Inorganic, at least with some special concepts and laws concerned in that system. Of course, we have not time ourselves to formulate a real system of the Inorganic here ; let us imagine that it is ready and perfect ; the parts of it which we shall use are such that all of you will easily understand what is being spoken about, even though you may regard as singularities what in truth are parts of a great unity and totality.