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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.

It has been dealt with in a masterly manner by Driesch; and we may at once say that we do not think that Loeb has in any way contraverted his argument, nor even entered the first line of defence of that which is built up around what he calls by the somewhat forbidding name of "Harmonious-Equipotential System."

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 importance of this fact is greatly increased if we trace out in detail the various impossible rival mechanical interpretations which have grown up around this interesting case. As Driesch says, “It is not a restoration starting from the wound, it is a substitution starting from a different place.” The Views of Botanists Illustrated.

Theyexplainthe processes of form-development and the regeneration of animals and plants, by constructing infinitely small animals and plants, which develop their form and regenerate lost parts. And Driesch holds it to be impossible to distribute a complicated tectonic among the elements of an equipotential system.

This is a necessary conclusion if the machine-theory be correct, and if we refuse to admit that vital phenomena are governed by specific laws. This consequence is monstrous, and the theory of the tectonists therefore false. But if it be false, what then? Driesch answers this question in the books published in subsequent years.

And he goes on to say, and this, I think, is one of his most important statements: "I suspect rather that their properties depend on some phenomenon of arrangement." Darwinism, according to Driesch, "explained how by throwing stones one could build houses of a typical style."

In his work onOrganic Regulations,” Driesch collects from the most diverse biological fields more and more astonishing proofs of the activity of the living as contrasted with physico-chemical phenomena, and of the marvellous power the organism has tohelp itselfand to attain the typical form and reach the end aimed at, even under the greatest diversity in the chain of conditions.

He was indeed a strange fellow; yes, they were right, a very curious chap, different from other people that was the result of his life out in the world but an incendiary? No! Was not his mother, Widow Driesch, a downright honest woman, a God-fearing woman besides, to whom every one must take off his hat?

The hammering of scythes after the day's work was done, this monotonous village music, had ceased; in its stead could now be heard by day the creaking of ox carts over the hardened clayey road, while cries of "gee," "haw" and the cracking of whips woke the echoes in the glimmering air above the fields. All the people were in the fields all but Katherine Driesch; she had no harvest to gather.