The Science and Philosophy of the Organism

We begin our philosophical analysis by summarising the most general results of the scientific part of these lectures in a new form and terminology. This will lead us to the discussion of a concept which plays a very important role in the usual logic and ontology, a concept which is regarded as a real category by some and as of a mere regulative and heuristic character by others. Many of you, I suppose, will have noticed that in the whole of our previous discussions, this year and last, we have strictly avoided making use of a certain term, though almost all our analysis related to the meaning of that term.

" Teleology " is the concept I am thinking of ; the words " teleology " and " teleological " have not been used a single time ; and in spite of that we have almost always dealt with phenomena which were teleological or " purposeful " in the highest sense. Let us begin our studies with a few analytical words about teleology, without discussing at present the true logical or ontological nature of this concept. In ordinary language and also in science, as long as science

remains purely descriptive, the word " purposeful " might be applied to relations of very great variety. The feet of men are very " purposeful " for walking, and so are the wings of birds for flying ; the process of regeneration in the earthworm is purposeful, as is also the formation of an antitoxin after a snake's bite ; the insect Phyllum has a very purposeful form and colour for being protected against enemies. But the modern railway system is very purposeful too ; the lift is a very purposeful instrument ; and of a man who triples his fortune in three years it might be said that he acted purposefully on some occasion, while the physician also acts purposefully when by an operation he saves his patient from death.

There is not the slightest doubt that the word purposeful cannot be used scientifically without thoroughly sifting its meaning. Let us, in the first place, avoid applying the word purposeful to mere arrangements or states : an engine of any kind is not purposeful but is " useful " ; in a certain sense it may be called "a purpose," and it is useful if it allows some events to go on which are " purposeful " in any sense. Only events, then, are " purposeful."

But when is an event to be called purposeful and when is it not ? To comprehend the proper meaning of the term " purpose ful " let us start by considering my own actions, to which this term is originally applicable. We shall here pursue a line of thought which later on is to lead us to very important consequences, but which at present is merely used for the sake of a clear terminology. My acting is " purposeful " whenever it serves to bring about what I like

or to do away with what I dislike. The " purpose " of my acting always is a certain state of the medium that " ought to exist " — an engine, for instance ; it is always external with respect to myself, and therefore the concept of a " selfpurpose " may be declined a limine. All my acting towards a purpose is based upon knowledge of the " means " by which the purpose may be attained, and upon judgment of the " suitability " of those means. From this it is but one step to call another man's actingpurposeful : he acts purposefully, whenever I see him acting in such a manner that I can imagine myself acting like him under similar conditions, that is, if I can imagine that, under the circumstances in which the other human being is placed, I should have some liking or disliking, and should act in some way in order to gratify or to obviate it. It follows from this that purposefulness in the acting of other men is always judged of by analogy alone. This is true, if we pass from man to the higher animals : even the actions of an ape or a dog may be said to be intelligible in some degree.

But things become more difficult as soon as we pass to the lowest organisms, still regarded as acting, and to processes of morphogenesis and metabolism : in what cases have we the right to claim certain such processes as purposeful or teleological and others not ? Mere analogy would fail here to justify the application of the term, for, in fact, we cannot imagine ourselves in the situation of a newt repairing its foot : we are certainly un able to regenerate our own foot if it is lost in an accident, and even if our body could repair it, the process would probably go on in a so-called unconscious manner. We

must then seek for a somewhat different criterion of teleology without leaving the analogy with our own acting quite out of sight. Now it seems to me that it would not meet the point to say that physiological and morphogenetic processes are teleological simply because they serve to form and to preserve the organism ; for this argument, taken by itself, would not imply that there is something that ought to be formed and preserved. We gain a deeper insight into the nature of the individual organism, if we remember that the organism is of the type of a specific constellation of simple elements, and that it is realised in its actual constellation in innumerable exemplars. And these exemplars, as was pointed out by Kant, are mutually " cause and effect " to one another. It was for this reason that Kant called the organisms "Naturzwecke" ("purposes of nature"). We shall not make use of Kant's terminology, but the argument it is based upon is important. Every organic process indeed, morphogenetic or physiological, is " purposeful " for the reason that it serves to form and to preserve a specific constellation which occurs in indefinite exemplars, and whose specificity has no other reason than the existence of a previous specificity of the same type ; for this reason and for no other is an organic process " teleological." For only on this basis is there an analogy with phenomena to which the predicate teleological has already been given by our previous analysis, viz., the phenomena leading to indefinite exemplars of specific constellations called machines, or objects of art and industry in general, that is the phenomena of human acting.

purposes, just as do the effects of acting, and therefore the processes leading to them are purposeful. Thus by regard ing certain bodies in nature as purposes we return to the analogy of our own acting : in doing so we indeed merely state that we could imagine ourselves wishing or liking those bodies to exist, and liking their existence in the state of normality. It is of no consequence to these preliminary discussions that works of art or handicraft are most markedly brought to their typical constellation by occurrences external to them in the spatial sense, whilst organisms are certainly not built up by external events in space. On a later occasion this distinction will receive the analysis which it undoubtedly deserves ; at present we are only seeking a useful terminology.

You might reply to our discussion by saying that nobody speaks of volcanoes or of crystals as "purposes," though both of them exist in indefinite exemplars. Volcanoes, however, are not derived one from the other, but are due most clearly to a cumulation of physico-chemical acts from without in every single case, and crystals are not typically composed bodies, as will be pointed out more fully on another occasion. Therefore processes leading to the formation of these two groups of natural bodies are by no means " teleological." Indefinitely repeated bodies must possess a specifically complex character, and must originate from their own kind, if the processes leading to them or restoring them are to be called " teleological."

We have said that we could imagine ourselves wishing the bodies called by Kant " purposes of nature " not only to exist in their innumerable exemplars but also to exist in the state of normality ; this discrimination requires a further analysis. You might say perhaps that only the processes of regulation ought to be called " teleological," i.e. only the processes leading from abnormal states to normality ; but would it not be quite unjustified to refuse the name to the processes of normal embryology, which indeed on account of the different kinds of harmony existing between them seem to promote the existence of the organic bodies in the highest degree ? Their existence as such therefore is to be regarded as nature's purpose — existence here to include all regulation of disturbances of normality.

And now let us make the last step in our application of the term " teleological " in its relation to processes occurring in natural bodies. All processes contributing to the construction of any kind of engines and machines made by man are purposeful, for they are actions of men. The machines themselves we have called merely " useful," but all the different processes that occur in such engines or machines when they are " working " are also purposeful. There is no difficulty, I believe, in understanding this sort of teleology, which appears in inorganic bodies belonging to the class of so-called artefacts, for it simply is part of the definition of a machine that it shall by its work ing serve some purpose of man. Thus purposefulness of machines is in the last resort the mere outcome of the teleology of acting. But it is important that the concept " teleological " has been thus transferred to inorganic events.

Let us not lose sight of the real character of the present discussion. We have only tried to answer the question : What sort of natural processes may be denoted by the predicate teleological ? We have done nothing but this work of terminological description. There was nothing laid down as to what teleology might signify. But now a more important analysis is to follow : to a certain extent we now shall pass from mere denomination to what may be called ontological problems.

Whilst studying the teleological processes going on in an engine constructed by man, we understand with absolute clearness and distinctness that a process in nature may be teleological or purposeful, and that it may be at the same time of a purely mechanical or physico-chemical order ; indeed all processes going on in human -built machines are of that class, no matter what the machine. We know that in these cases every single process of the whole of the engine's function goes on in its singularity, and that its purposefulness or teleology is due only to its place and combination in the whole : it only is purposeful because it stands in this special relation to other single processes, and for no other reason at all.

Let us speak of a statical teleology in such cases, or of a teleology of constellation. Now at once the question arises : Are all teleological processes in nature of the statical type, and what would follow if they were not ? Of course, the name dynamical teleology might be given to all kinds of natural processes which are purposeful without being the mere outcome of the constellation of a machine. We have proved by three independent lines of argu ment that such processes exist in organisms. From our

analysis of the differentiation of harmonious - equipotential systems, and of the genesis of complex -equipotential systems, and from our intimate study of the process of acting, going on upon an historically created basis and with the criterion of an individualised correspondence between cause and effect, we have learnt that no machine, of whatever kind and whatever degree of combination, can afford us the means of understanding what happens here in the organism. There was a natural factor at work, autonomic and not resulting from a combination of other agents, but elemental in itself ; this factor acted teleologically : it therefore may be called a factor of dynamical teleology.

It might seem that we ought to have been able to accomplish our proof more easily : might we not have said simply that the single processes going on in a machine are of course of the statical-teleological type, but that the act of constructing this machine is of course a dynamicalteleological one, being due to my will ? That argument would have been simple indeed, but it would have been also wrong : for psychological terms were excluded from our discussion, which was purely one of natural science. We had to prove exclusively by natural science that there was no possibility of a statical-teleological ex planation, and this, I trust, we have succeeded in doing.

After this terminological work we shall now begin to study what that impossibility means. Let us begin with a descriptive enumeration of the im portant characteristics of our entelechy. Entelechy either underlies the origin of an organic body, typically built up of typical elements, or it underlies an action, i.e. a typical combination of typical move ments. Thus we see : entelechy always results in a inanifoldness of a typical kind, the single elements of which are beside each other in space, or one after the other in time, or both, always in a typical order. Let us call such a manifoldness as is the result of the manifestation of entelechy an extensive manifoldness, and let us not forget to notice that all sorts of engines or machines are also extensive manifoldnesses in this meaning of the word.

Now we believe we have proved that entelechy, i.e. the foundation of the extensive manifoldnesses just mentioned, whether organisms or machines, is not in its turn an extensive manifoldness of the type of any machine what ever. In other words, the actual organism, as it offers itself to observation, is certainly a combination of singularities, each of which may be described in terms of physics and chemistry, like a machine, and also all changes in these singularities lead to results which may be so described, but the reason of the origin of the

combination and of all its changes is not a law or any combination of laws taught us by physics and chemistry, but rests upon entelechy, as does the reason of the origin of any kind of machine that results from acting. We therefore propose to give the name intensive manifoldness to all kinds of entelechies or psychoids : there is, in fact, something " manifold " in them, but the elements of the manifoldness are neither one beside the other in space nor one after the other in time. We may say that entelechy is manifold in thought but simple as a natural agent.

As being an intensive manifoldness entelechy belongs to the general sphere of dynamic teleology : there is some thing teleological in its very work, whether this work be directed towards the normality of an organic individual, with regard to form or function — existence in space being included in the meaning of the term " normality " — or whether, as in real acting, the boundaries of mere normality are broken. Acting, in fact — the work of the " artist " in the widest sense of that term, — not only " is " but creates, and entelechy creates through the artist.

Here we meet again the difference between a product of entelechy that is itself the point of manifestation of entelechy — the organism — and a product of entelechy that is a machine and is unable to perform further entelechian acts itself : " acting has gone over into its product" (" Die Tiitigkeit ist in ihr Produkt libergegangen "), to use a phrase applied by Hegel. We shall have to say more about this later on. Once more we say that entelechy or the psychoid has nothing of a " psychical " nature : in the psychical sphere

there is only my Ego, at least for the critical and idealistic philosopher. "I " have sensations and likings and judg ments and volitions, but nature as the object of my perceiving and judging and wishing only has agents or factors relating to its structure and type of change ; entelechies and psychoids are some of these factors. It is true, we occasionally have taken analytical expres sions from psychology in order to describe these agents by analogy, and we shall do so again. But our object in doing so was, and will be, exclusively to analyse the kind and degree of manifoldness concerned in entelechy ; for this kind and degree of manifoldness resembles to a great extent the manifoldness of the whole of the psychical phenomenon. In this way psychology simply becomes a method in our studies.

For a more intimate study of the nature of the mani foldness embraced in entelechy, I think it advisable to separate the different kinds of entelechies, according to whether so-called " experience " plays a part in them or not : the entelechies of morphogenesis and of instinct l are wanting in the criterion of the " historical basis of reacting," psychoids are endowed with it. It is by no means difficult to get a good idea of part of the manifoldness concerned in " psychoids " by a psycho logical analysis. In fact, we have merely to apply such concepts as perceiving, liking, judging, willing to a psychoid in a metaphorical manner in order to have a good picture

1 Provided entelechy is concerned in instinctive life. See page 50. of what is happening in every natural event where psychoids come into play — of course a picture only, in the merely descriptive meaning of the word. Let us speak of secondary " knowing and willing " in the case of those acts of a psychoid which go on upon its historical basis, its " experience." These two psycho logical terms seem to be sufficient to describe adequately what happens, as it is well known from pure psychological analysis that liking and judging — judging about the most " suitable " means among those which are known to promote the end — are never wanting whenever the act of knowing and volition occurs ; psychical elemental functions are inseparable in fact and only separable in thought ; to name a few of them therefore is, for the purposes of our analogy, to name them all.

The word " secondary," as applied to certain characters of the manifoldness of one type of entelechy, the psychoid, seems to imply that there are also some " primary " character istics of a similar kind ; in studying the primary features of entelechies our analysis will become far more difficult. It is worth while to notice, in the first place, that primary characters are not only possessed by the entelechy of morphogenesis, metabolism, and instinct, but in some measure by psychoids also. That they are possessed by morphogenetic, physiological, and instinctive entelechies is clear without any further deliberation. The manifestations of these entelechies are " primary " : they occur either not at all or perfectly the very first time ; all sorts of restitu tions and of instincts are instances of this primariness. But how could " secondary " faculties appear in the other class of entelechies, the psychoids, endowed with the

historical basis of reacting, if there were not also primary faculties in them ? We are here faced by a very fundamental problem of the theory of knowledge in its biological form. "How is experience possible ? " was the epistemological question of Kant ; " how are the secondary faculties of pyschoids possible ? " is the biological question. Here again, of course, analogies only are possible.1 We may say that in order to judge or to know, the general type of judging and of knowing must be given. And the same holds about the analogy to volition : what is willed rests on experience, but willing itself is primary. And, moreover, the effect that is " consciously " willed in the " secondary " form, depending upon " experience," is always a certain state of the external world. This is accomplished by no means im mediately ; it is accomplished by muscular motions, and these, on their part, depend on specific innervations. Now of " innervations " the unscientific mind knows nothing at all ; and it by no means " wills " innervations. But they are performed (in an " unconscious " way), and this fact alone, it seems to me, proves beyond all doubt that primary

1 I should like to take this opportunity of pointing out that Jennings is mistaken if he thinks that in the case of the righting reactions of the starfish entelechy would in any case not be "final " and "ultimate," since these re actions in their specificity rest upon the "past history" of the individual. He does not clearly enough separate here the "primary " and the "secondary " characteristics of a special entelechian factor, or rather "psychoid." If the righting reactions were instinctive, then only primary " knowing and willing " would come into account ; now Jennings has proved that they rest upon "experience," and therefore he believes that entelechy is not an elementality. But the possibility of being influenced by the " past history " implies the existence of a new and final natural agent. " Secondary knowing and willing" (i.e. "experience" or the specific "historical basis") implies " primary knowing and willing" (i.e. the possibility of acquiring a specific "historical basis").

knowing and willing is concerned in any kind of acting : the faculty of innervation is " primary." So far there would hardly seem to exist any serious analytical difficulty ; but the problem becomes very com plicated as soon as we turn from the facts to the " how," as soon as we inquire the meaning of the primary faculties of those entelechies in which an historical basis does not play any part at all. We indeed are in a rather desperate condition with regard to the real analysis of the fundamental properties of morphogenetic, adaptive, and instinctive entelechies : for there must be a something in them that has an analogy not to knowing and willing in general — as it may be supposed to exist in the primary faculties of pyschoids — hut to the willing of specific un experienced realities, and to knowing the specific means of attaining them. And we are by no means able to understand such a specified primary knowing and willing in even the slightest degree.1

It is here that the difference between the " conscious " and the " unconscious " enters the field, if we choose for a moment to adopt Eduard von Hartmann's terminology. We do not accept this terminology definitively, but the differences expressed by it are real differences. Without doubt it is at this point that vitalism encounters its greatest difficulties. It is here that so many make up their minds that they cannot accept vitalism as a theory at all. They would be inclined to accept the autonomy of life as far as psychoids are concerned, as far as the historical