Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
BERTRAM C. A» WIMDLJS
VITALISM AND
SCHOLASTICISM
VITALISM AND
SCHOLASTICISM
BY
BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE
m.a., m.d., sc.d., ll.d., f.r.s., f.s.a., k.s.g.
of st Michael's college, Toronto
LONDON
SANDS & CO.
15 KING STREET, CO VENT GARDEN
AND AT EDINBURGH
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
THE DUNEDIN PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
1)2
TO
my guide, philosopher and friend
IN MEMORY OF
MANY SYMPOSIA IN SUTTON PARK AND ELSEWHERE
IE375562
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Preface 11
9
CONTENTS
XIII. Heredity and Variation . . . 209
Index 251
10
PREFACE
adherents.
In a succeeding chapter the views of
scholastic philosophy on this question will be
briefly detailed : meantime it is perhaps hardly
necessary to say that writers of this school
were unanimously vitalistic. This continued
to be true to what some would call the end of
B
18 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM
the scholastic period, for Petrus Pomponatus
(1464-1524) otherwise Pomponazzi, whom some
have called the last of the schoolmen,* whilst
he held that Aristotle believed the human soul
to be mortal and seems to have upheld that
opinion himself, was fully vitalistic in his
views.
During this period the discussion was carried
on, as indeed it continued to be later, by those
who would be more fitly described as philo-
height."*
What caused the change of opinion with
regard to the vitalistic theory which actually
took place, for it is, so to speak, only yesterday
that hardly a voice was raised anywhere in its
* Op. cit., p. 4.
DECADENCE AND REVIVAL 33
36
THE SCHOLASTIC POSITION 37
* The
error of the two standards of truth icas held by f£-
Averroes, who has no sort of title to be considered a
scholastic or e^en an orthodox philosopher, and by a few
other equally unorthodox writers, especially of the Renais-
sance period.
40 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM
the Scholastic Philosophy —Thomism, if you
like — is in a sense the official philosophy of the
Church, and more than ever so since the pub-
lication of Leo XIII.'s Encyclical, Aeterni
Patris, and that many explanations of Catholic
dogmata are closely wrapped up with its
methods and nomenclature. Hence it is un-
likely that it will ever cease to be the official
THE CELL
50
THE CELL 51
* Op. cit., p. 1.
52 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM
cell, the formless, structureless, microscopic-
ally small drop of protoplasm — it shows all the
essential functions of life : nourishment,
growth, reproduction, motion, sensation —yes,
even functions which at least compensate for
the 'sensorium,' the conscious life of the higher
animals."
The cell is indeed a very small object of
study. The tiny mass of protoplasm, though
we now know that it is by no means structure-
less, would seem to the casual observer to be
an object whose possibilities must soon be
exhausted. Yet the more microscopes are
improved, the more methods of staining and of
observation are perfected, the more the cell
PfdstiJs /y/no m
Pfamaseme cr
i?i$ cyfopUsm
true* nucleoli
Chromt2-/n-
. . Met- work
L/nrn-A/efivvn
A'iar/t<
I
j
Karyosomc*
InelAnot or*
Chrombn VzccoqIc
• nutlectut.
.f&sstve Bootes
(metep/dsm or ptupksm)
y suspended w the cjfo.
Fig. I.
62
CHARACTERISTICS OF LIVING MATTER 63
of all notice that it moves (see Fig. II). It
Fig. II.
* Hartog.
64 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM
creature and it is also able to transport itself
from place to place. Further, we set up
if
E
66 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM
plet, c'est done bien Facte d'une puissance
encore en puissance."*
In the second place if we watch the amoeba
we shall find that it is capable of responding
to certain stimuli, such as a touch, to which
it replies by contracting itself and by drawing
* Hartog.
—
LIVING MATTER 70
fins.
REPRODUCTION
Karyokinesis — —
A Vital Process Cell-Division — Is it
—
Mechanical ? Experimental Embryology.
* Op. cit., p. 26, for references, etc., see his paper, Proc.
Roy. Soc, 1905, B. lxxvi., p. 518.
100 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM
the two are really identical or even similar pro-
cesses ? Similar, but not identical, is Professor
Hartog's reply to this question. " Though,"
he says, " the forces at work in the dividing
cell are similar in their effects to such physical
forces as magnetism, static electricity, and
even capillarity, and models utilising such
physical forces have been devised to represent
the strain figures of the cell, the cell forces
are distinctfrom any known physical force."
In other words the indications point to the
fact that the remarkable happenings which
have been described as taking place in the cell
prior to and during division are vital mani-
festations, since they cannot be explained by
any of the known forces of physical science.
In a later publication, in which the whole
of this subject is thoroughly handled,* the
opinions previously put forward, and as his
views are of the first importance, these expres-
sions may well be quoted here. " The cell-field
REPRODUCTION 101
CHAPTER VIII
—
History of the Controversy Dr Bastian's Views Where —
—
did Living Matter come from The Catholic Position.
He says :
* " The mode of production of living
matter is characteristic, and cannot be brought
about by the action solely of inorganic forms
of energy. Living matter is produced only by
the action of other living matter upon the
materials and forms of energy of the non-living
world. In the process the matter involved is
* P. 312.
124 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM
have come to the conclusion that bacteria never
arise de novo." The repeated boilings and the
high temperatures employed by bacteriologists
are made use of for the very purpose of sterilis-
come from? deed the scientific creed of the day, where did
the first living matter come from ? This world
was once so hot that no living thing could
exist upon it. It cooled down and a time
arrived when life could exist. Where did it
come from ? Some space must be devoted to
BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS 125
be shown.
Some, like Sir E. Schaefer in his Presidential
Address to the British Association in 1912,
would have us believe that the promise of life
is to be found in those very interesting and
complicated bodies the colloids (i.e, glue-like
substances), which are undoubtedly the under-
lying fabric of many of the processes of life.
—
men of science have claimed as we have al-
ready seen —that though spontaneous genera-
tion does not take place or cannot be proved
to take place nowadays, yet must have taken
it
. . , , . plications
know, inorganic matter, through successive
complications, gave origin to organic matter,"
as Herbert Spencer put it.*
Huxley f thought that if it were given to Huxley
him " to look beyond the abyss of geologically
recorded time " he might " expect to be a
witness of the evolution of living protoplasm
from not-living matter."
On a careful consideration of all the state-
* Op cit., p. 465.
"
CHAPTER IX
ADAPTATIONS
ADAPTATIONS 145
ADAPTATIONS 149
pseudopodia.
One may colloquially speak of this surface
as its front and the convex aspect as its back.
Now sometimes it will occur that Arcella will
tumble over on to its convex back and in that
desires.
demonstrated."
A few further examples of this kind amongst
invertebrates (where the instances are legion)
may now be detailed.
Observers of the common objects of the sea-
* History, p. 175.
170 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM
shore can scarcely have failed to have seen
Tubularia
specimens of the creature called Tubularia.
It has a stem, the base of which is embedded
in the sand and a head-end surrounded by a
ring of tentacles and provided with a sort of
proboscis. Almost anything can be done with
this creature in the way of regeneration. If
the head be snipped off the base will grow
a new head and the head a new base, just as
a worm chopped in two will do. If instead
of cutting it the animal be pulled up by the
roots and replanted head downwards the head-
end develops roots and the root-end becomes
a head with tentacles and proboscis.
Finally, if we snip off the head and tail of
the polyp and hang it up horizontally in the
water by a thread, it willgrow a head from
either end.
Another creature Planaria, a parasitic worm,
can be cut up into a number of pieces all of
which will develop into complete individuals.
Planaria Moreover like the Hydra it can be partially
bisected and will then grow into a kind of
two-headed Nightingale amongst Planarians,
with a single body and two heads. More
wonderful still if oblique cuts be made into the
sides of the body new heads or tails will grow
from them according to the direction in which
the incisions have been made (fig. iv.).
REPAIRS AND REGENERATION 171
whefi hdvc induced the new -formation of he<ids (MJ ofd//s(sJ ancf t )
Fig. IV.
* Arch.
f. Entwickl.-Mech. d. Organismen, xiv., 1902.
REPAIRS AND REGENERATION 173
basket.
With this process we have already become
familiar, for it is we
the kind of thing which
have studied in the Hydra and in the earth-
worm, but the process of reconstruction some-
times takes place in quite a different manner,
and this is especially the case in smaller indi-
viduals. In these cases reconstruction begins
not by a process of renewal but by one of
regression.
The organisation of the gill-basket, its
a new machine.
Assuredly these phenomena seem to point
to the existence of some special energy or force
intimately present throughout the entire living
organism, unifying its various parts, dominating
their activities, directing the evolution of the
being as a whole towards a definite prefixed
end, which, according to the old view was just
the function of the " Vital Principle " —in
other words, the "Form"* of the Scholastic
Philosophy.
It is extremely difficult to any
imagine
theory which will account for the phenomena
of regeneration on purely chemico-physical
lines, since they, like the phenomena which we
studied in connection with the developing
ovum, so clearly point to the existence of a
logy-
That is just what we are urging here;
mechanism and teleology are not mutually
exclusive. Mechanism is the way in which the
" telic " factor attains its end let us hear :
REGENERATION 183
Dr 'sch
properly says that one proof is sufficient. " A
truth is either proved or not proved ; and, if
Fig. V.
REGENERATION 189
fig 5).
Living —
Things and Machines Their Differences Spencer —
—
and Weismann A " Verbal Explanation."
purposeful,'
i.e., assisting to preserve the individual and the
6
race. This again suggests design '
and a de-
(
signing force,' which we do not find in the
Loeb realm of physics. We must remember, however,
that there was a time when the same '
purpose-
fulness '
was believed to exist in the cosmos
where everything seemed to turn literally and
metaphorically around the earth, the abode of
man. In the latter case, the anthropo- or geo-
centric view came to an end when it was shown
that the motions of the planets were regulated
by Newton's law, and that there was no room
left for the activities of a guiding power. Like-
wise, in the realm of instincts, when it can be
shown that these instincts may be reduced to
elementary physico-chemical laws, the assump-
tion of design becomes superfluous." (Italics
world.
Or again take the question of the ether, of The ether
Fertilisation —Parthenogenesis—Heredity—Particulate
and Mnemic Theories —Variation.
The ovum from which the adult form develops
is in the enormous majority of cases the result
of the fusion of elements derived from two
parents, male and female. Thus in the vege-
table kingdom the pollen granules, shed from
the anthers of the stamens of the male plant
or portion of the plant, are conveyed by in-
living form.
Of late a good deal of attention has been
directed to the subject of artificial partheno-
genesis by the extremely interesting experi-
ments of Jacques Loeb.* He has succeeded
by methods physical and chemical in inducing
Energy.
Physical energy, that is to say the capacity
for doing work, may be of two kinds. It may
be kinetic or in actual evidence, as it is in a
'
Vital Principle,' or Form is holding and
' '
Q
—
242 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM
to be known about that Law and must set
251
252 INDEX
Canning trade, the, 115. " Cuttings " of plants, 164.
Carbonaceous jelly, 130. Cytoplasm, 57.
Carpenter, 149.
Darwinism, 21.
Cartesianism, 40.
Darwinism and Vitalism, 242.
Catalysis, 230.
Darwinism or Teleology? 169.
Cell in Development and In-
Darwinismus und Lamarck-
heritance, The, 30.
ismus, 147 n.
Cell, its characters, 53.
Death, 71.
Centro-epigenetic hpyothesis,
Definition Philosophique de la
220.
Vie, La, 65.
" Cereum nasum," 37
De Generatione Animalium, 50.
Chatterton Hill, 90.
de Munnyck, Pere, 66 n.
Chemical Discovery and Inven-
Descartes, 34.
tion in the Twentieth Cen-
Development of the Frog's
tury, 118 it.
Egg, The, 60.
Chemistry, the Father of, 14.
de Vries, 222.
Chlamydomonas, 148.
Direction and directive power,
Chlorophyll, 133.
237.
Chromatin, 57.
Directive touch, 230.
Chromosomes, distribution of,
Division of cell, 97.
in cells, 98.
Driesch, 19, 20, 169, 172, 184
Cienkowski, 147.
seq.; list of works, 180 n.
Claude Bernard, 66.
Duddon, River, 83.
Clavellina lepadiformis, 172,
Duncan, Professor, 207.
187.
Colloids, 87, 128. Earthworms, 166.
Colpodella pugnax, 148. Eels, life history of, 155.
Complex equipotential system, Eimer, 32.
190. Electrons, 15.
Conservation of Energy, 21. Elements, chemical, 14.
Conservation of Energy, the Emboitement, 183.
Law of, 224. Emules de Darwin, Les, 82 n.
"Constellations of energy," Endocrine glands, 230.
204. Energy, 224.
Cope, 32. Energy, Conservation of, 21.
Corporeal souls, 17. Entelechy, 160, 162.
Creation, 131. Epigenesis and evolution, 183.
?
Crookes radiometer, 126. Ether, the, 162, 207.
Crystals and living things, 77. Etheric theory of matter, 43.
Curie, M. and Mme., 15. Evening Primrose, the, 222.
INDEX 253
Evolution of Life, The, 122. Huxley, 24, 54, 117, 135, 173,
Experimental embryology, 104. 226, 245.
Hydra, 164.
Flemming, 58.
Hylomorphic theory, 42.
Kant, 239.
Haldane, J.S., 29, 208. Karyokinesis, 94, 98.
Harmonious equipotential sys- Kelvin, Lord, 83, 125.
tem, 186 seq.
Hartog, 25 n., 62, 67, 72, 99, Lancelet, the, 109, 181.
193, 229 n. " Laws of Nature," 225.
Harvey, W., 112. Le Dantec, 26, 85, 146.
Harvey, William, 50. Le Due, 141.
Helio- and geo-centricism, 200. Lemmings, 157.
Henslow, 32. Lens of eye, removal of, 168.
or to the
JUL 6 1995
JUN 1 g 2006
20.000 (4/94)
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES
CD2MADS732
*V .- *j .„». r