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Why Aristotle Invented the Word Entelecheia (Continued)Author(s): Wm. E. RitterReviewed work(s):Source: The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Mar., 1934), pp. 1-35Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2808485 .

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VOL.

9,

NO. I

MARCH,

I934

THE

QUARTERLY

REVIEW

of

BIOLOGY

WHY

ARISTOTLE

INVENTED

THE

WORD

ENTELECHEIA

(Continued)

BY WM. E. RITTER

SECOND FOREWORD

LETTERS

voked y the

portion f this rticle

published year go, have shownme that

nowhere n the substance f the rticle o

I make clear theground

f my nterestn

the problemdiscussed.

That ground s,

first nd

most deeply,my nterest

n

Nature-in

all

Nature-not

n a

fewparts

of t that

happen

o

strike

my personal ikes or dislikes. This interest rew,

slowly

and

long, sometimes

nterruptedlyut never

menacingly, nd led me, finally, o "accept the Uni-

verse."

Though always hesitant bout

being

too

hard

on

the

Universe,

ven on the partsof

t

that were east

to

my aste, t was not till aftermy

period

f

nfallible

knowledge bout t andcantankerousriticism f dis-

approved arts f t (period, .e., of early nd middle

life)that became uly mpressed

ith

the

ereneway

Nature

gets long

n

theface

f

fault-finding

ith

her.

Nottillthen idmy cceptance ecomewhole-hearted.

Butother actorsontributedo

the cceptance.One

of

he

most

nfluential

f

thesewas

the

clarification

f

my understandinghat we ourselves re

parts

of

the

Universe n so vital a fashion s to

be privileged,

n-

deed

compelled, y

the

very

nature

f

the

case,

to

con-

tribute o making

he

Universe

what t

is

on

any par-

ticular ay of our ives.

Seeingthatby no hook or crookcan we do other-

wise, t is best, hen,forus to

accept

he Universe-

as

a

reality.

But, eeing

furtherhat

we

cannot

void

contributingo changes n thatreality,t is bestfor

us to see to

it

as far s possible

hat these

hanges

rc

good forus.

Vast scientific

esearches

ave made

he nterrelated-

ness

of parts f nature armoremanifest o us than t

has been

to previous enerations.

We ourselves

nd

the

myriad ther iving

things, ikewise

the earth,

the un

and all the

heavenly osts,

withoutwhich we

neither

ive nor

move nor have any

being-of

such

does reality urn

ut to be.

Travel n this

highway

ed me

n

due

time o recog-

nize he

need f ome ne

word r phrase or xpressing

a truth

bout reality hat

is not

expressed y any

English word. Aristotle'sfamousword entelecheia

comesverynear

filling his need.

The phrase

com-

plete

reality," doptedby

W. D. Ross as an

English

equivalent or he

word, s

justifiableo far

s myvery

meager

nowledge f the

Greek anguage nables

me

to judge. "Fulfilment"

rofessor oss kindly ug-

gests

owby etter s a possible

ingle-wordquivalent.

This would be

fine

f

t could nclude

he dea

of

gene-

sis

as

unmistakably

s does "complete

reality;"

for

the nclusion f

this dea is unquestionably

ne

of the

chiefmerits ftheword.

Theseparagraphsrea revision f theForewordo

the installment

lreadypublished.

Their purpose

s

to make

learermyprimary

nterestn this tudy.

But

I

want

also to make clear

my econdary

nterest,

he

question f Aristotle's

ttitude oward,

and

concep-

tion

of,Nature.

Intrinsicallyhe

man

was

cast

n the

same

spiritualmold, according

o my view,

that

all

the great

naturalists f all

the ages

have been

cast n.

Of these

naturalists

mention nly

two,

restricting

myself

hus for

a reasonthat will

appear

as

we

go

along.

The two

chosen reCharles

arwin

and

T. H.

Huxley.

In

several ate publications

t is

pointed

ut

that ll

naturalistsmay be ranged

n two great ubdivisions.

For

one

of

these

the

terms ave

and analytic,

or

he

I

QUAR.

RBV.

BIOL.,

VOL.

9,

NO. I



T THE QUARTERLY

REVIEW OF

BIOLOGY

other

philosophic

nd

synthetic,

ave

been

suggested.

Neither

he naming

nor the

defining

f the

groups

s

particularly

asy. There

s, however,

ne

character-

istic hat

s of

lmost

nfailing

iagnostic

alue.

That

is the presence r absence n a givennaturalist f in-

terestn,

and

effortn,

thenature

f

knowledge

tself,

the

epistemology

f

traditional

hilosophy.

Any

naturalistwho "accepts

the universe"

n the

sense bove

indicated,

.e., not

only

because

he can't

help

himself

but

because

he is eager

and glad

to,

thereby

ommits

himself o

some serious

attention

to the problem

f

knowledge.

This for

he obvious

reason

hathaving

ccepted

imself

s

part f the

uni-

verse,

he has accepted

ll

of

his activities.

Among

these

ctivities

rehis

getting

nd

using

fknowledge.

So it turns

ut

that very

uch

naturalist elongs

willy-

nilly, o

both

the subclasses

f theclass ofnaturalists

we are

recognizing.

But so well-nigh

universal

s

the

custom mong

modern

tudents f

the

natural

ciences o

limiE

heir

studies

o theexternal

world

hat ny

tendency

ther-

wise

has tended

o

bring

ll repute

pon

the

venturer.

To be

"objective"

is the unfortunate

erm

hosen

s

descriptive

f the proper

method

f

procedure.

The

need

formore

ritical ttention

o themeaning

f this

and many

ther

wordsused

by

naivenaturalists

s

one

of

the

things

hat

makes

t

important

or

very

aive

naturalist o become lso a philosophicalnaturalist

in some

measure. (In

anticipation

f the

legitimate

query

s

to what

mypretensions

o

being philosophi-

cal

naturalist

est

n,

refer

o a

few,

ather

ragmen-

tary,

writings

f

this

purport

hich

havethus

ar

een

published:

itter

nd

Bailey,

927,

i92.8,

i929;

Ritter,

192-9, 1931.)

So

prodigious

n

size

and

complexity

f

structure

and action

s the

portion

of

nature

utside

f

us,

and

so

fascinating

s

it,

too,

that

t is neither urprising

nor

deplorable

hat the

vast

majority

f

naturalists

shouldoccupy hemselveseryargelywith the tudy

of

this

portion

f

nature.

But

it is also

neither

ur-

prising

or deplorable

hat

a

considerable

umber

f

naturalists

hould

be

more

nterested

n the

processes

themselves

f getting

nd

using

knowledge

han

in

the

things

known nd used.

Of

all those

who

have

accepted

nature

he most

fully

nd

devoted

themselves

most single-mindedly

and effectively

o thestudy

f

her

n

the

fashionwe

have denominated

s

naive,

no one

seems

to have

equalled,

much ess

o have urpassed,

harles

arwin.

The implication f this,thatthe exaltedplaceheld

by

Dawrin

among

cientists

s due

to

his

labors

s

a

naive

naturalist

o the

almost

entire

exclusion

of

labors

s

a

philosophical

aturalist,

s likely

o come

with something

f a shock

to

most,

perhaps o

all,

scientists.

Yct

in

so

far

s

occupation

with the

prob-

lem

fknowledge

s taken

s

a criterionf

philosophy,

Darwin's

loofness an

be shown

withgreat

learness.

All professional

hilosophers

ho have

given

atten-

tion to the point

seem greed

n

this. The truth

f

it deservesmore ttentionhan it has

received.

T. H.

Huxley, n the

otherhand,

s allied

withthe

philosophical

s well

as with

the naive

naturalists.

His Hume, ume

with

Helps o he

tudy

fBerkeley,

nd

portions

fhis articles

n Agnosticism

ed

him far nto

theproblem

f knowledge.

Thesewritings

mark im

as a philosophical

aturalist

uite as definitely

s his

writings

n marinenvertebrates,

nfossil

ertebrates,

and on

human

natomy

nd physiology

mark

him

as

a naive naturalist.

In unpublished

manuscript

f

the larger

work of

which this article

s a part,

draw

quite a "parallel

lives" of Aristotle nd Huxley. In the likeness n

type

fthe

two, nothing

tands

ut

more

harply han

theircommon

haracteristic

f

nasiv-ness

n the one

hand, and philosophic-ness

n the

otherhand.

Both

did extensive

esearches n

marine

nvertebrateool-

ogy,

hat

s to

say,

on

animals ar own

he oological

scale

n

one direction;

nd also on man

nd the higher

vertebrates

n

the other

direction.

The conclusion

reach

bout Aristotle

may

be epi-

tomized s

follows:

n

original

responsiveness

here

is every

eason

o suppose

his bent

was toward

ccept-

ing naturenthe sense ndicated. His childhood nd

earlyyouth,

ived

n

a

home nvironment

f

medicine

and

surgery

nd a

neighborhood

nvironment

f

hills,

valleys

and

streams,

nd

of

sea

and

shore,

s these

entered o

largely

nto the physical eography

f

the

almostprimitive

Macedonia

of

that

time,

would

be

especially

avorable

or uch

a

bent.

A flood

of

par-

ticulars-sensoryparticulars-largely

rimal,

never-

ceasing,

ever-varying,

oured

upon

the

boy

from ll

sides.

Research

f

late

years

has

convinced

s

that

the

nfluencef

nvironment

n

the

mentality

f

young

childrenssuch hat onditionsikethose nderwhich

Aristotle

ived as

a

boy

are

by

no

means

nsignificant

for

he restof

ife.

Then

came the

transplantation

f

the

youth

to

the

vastly

different

nvironment,

hat of

a

city

and

a

culture of

peerless

grandeur.

Athens

and

the

Academy

The flood

that

poured

upon

the

youth

and

young

man

for

lmost wenty

ears-what

a contrast

t

was

from

he

flood

hat

had

poured

upon

the

boy

Uni-

versals

ow,

not particulars,

ere

its chief

ubstance.

Andthismeant houghtsmore han ense erceptions.

Subtleties

f expression,

ialectic nd

rhetoric

more

thannames, escriptions

nd

classifications

f

bserved

objects

were

now

the constituents

f the

flood.

But no

environment

hatever

s the

whole

story

for ny

iving eing.

The being

tself

s

an

essential-



ARISTOTLE AND

ENTELECHEIA

3

an exceedinglyssential-partof

the

story. Particu-

larly s this o if the being s as highly onstituteds

is

a

humanbeing. Most particularly

f all is it so if

the humanbeinghappens o be an

Aristotle.

Readily s theyouth esponded

o, profoundlys he

was influenced y, the stream hat flowedfrom he

Athenian and Academic environment,his stream

could not entirely bliterate he nfluence

f the flood

to which he was

subject

s a boy.

Consequently,s

he neared hematurityfmanhood nd passedbeyond

theprecinctsftheAcademy, e began o feel,we may

conjecture,hat hekindofthing e experienced ears

ago

in

Macedoniawas not essreal than the

kindhe

had now experiencedn Athens, nd hence thatthe

two mnuste

n

harmony t somegreatdepth

f

truth.

Distressinglycant hough hebiographical vidence

is, t ustifieshe urmise hat t thiscritical eriod f

his lifeAristotle aught a gleam

that ed him to be-

come, finally,

he

"type specimen" this

technical

term am ntitled

o

use from

myvocation s

a taxon-

omist

n

natural

history)

of

the

subspeciesphilo-

sophicalnaturalist,

f

he pecies aturalist,ccording

to

our

classification.

The

truth, gleam

of which

imagine

him to

have

caught, concerns

he

phrase:

"accept the

universe."

Is the phrase o be taken s merely

hese wo words

with

ome ll-defined eaning ttached o them?

Or

is it to be takenwith a meaning hat correspondso

the

objective

ruth

bout the Universe

nd the emo-

tional-rational

ruth

bout accepting?

The constitu-

tution f the universes suchthat

t must e accepted

both

n

its stateof wholeness nd n

its

state

of com-

positeness.

He

who attempts

o

accept

it

on

any

other

basis

than ts

oneness

n the one hand,

nd ts

manyness

n

the

other

hand,

makes

he attempt

t the

peril

ofhis

own

oneness,

r

ntegrity.

As to

size

and

number

f

parts, he universe as

no limits

o

far s

observational nowledge

has

been able

to ascertain.

As to thecreative nd sustentativeowers ftheuni-

verse,

here

re no observably emonstrable

imits

o

itspowersof sustaining lready xisting arts nd of

producing ew parts.

Of

these ruths bout the universe, ristotle aught

hardlymore han gleam. How could he have done

better?

So small

portion

f the

universe,

nd

so few

of

ts

parts

were

accessible

n

his

day,

the wonder

s

that

he shouldhave

caught

ven

this

much.

Butcatching ven hismuch f thetruth ufficed

o

endue

himwith sensitivenesso all thethings

ound

abouthim,with uriositybout heir eepestmeaning,

and with determination

o

satisfy

imself

n

these

scores. Accordingly,

hen

about

forty ears

ld

he

laid

out

for

himself

he

task,

recognizable y

us now

as

inconceivably ast,

of

acquiring knowledge

nd

understandinghat

should be coextensive

n size and

commensuraten detail with the Universe.

He would produce science f the whole Universe

in contradistinctiono the cience aught t theAcad-

emy which he seeminglyand I thinkrightly)re-

garded as in effect

n attempt o avoid

accepting

exceedingly mportant

arts of the Universe.

The

historic fact and the probable significance

hereof

that Aristotle urned

with greatest eriousness

o the

study f nature fter

is extensive tudies n theAcad-

emy, ppearto be

gaining recognition

y specialists

in the Aristotelian ritings. All naturalists

measur-

ably acquainted

with the whole situation

would, I

think, gree thatsuch pretended atural

knowledge

as

thatpresented

n

the Timaces,

or

xample,

ouldbe

no more cceptable o Aristotle s a naive

naturalist

than he PlatonicForms nd deas were cceptable o

him as a philosophicalnaturalist.

But the undertaking

hat Aristotleproposed

for

himself as gigantic ven

n his

day,

relatively mall

and

simple hough

he Universe

hen eemed. As a

naive naturalist e

mustdescribe, ame,

nd classify

all its lands and waters and

the

nhabitants

hereof;

the un,moon nd

stars; heblue sky;

the

air with

ts

winds and storms;

nd whatever lse mightbe

con-

tained n the floodof sensory xperience.

Further-

more he;causes, otencies,

nd actualities

f all

these,

he would have to consider.

The

attempt

o

carry

ur

this

part

of

his

program

was responsible

or ringing pon

his head

themodern

witheringriticism

f uperficiality.

rom

preading

himself ver verything

nd consequently eing

hor-

ough

in

nothing,

is

labors, thoughuniversally

d-

mitted o be almost nsurpassed

n volume,

reviewed

by

some

xact scientists

f our

day

as valueless f not

worse. It

s

true hatmuch f

ll

natural

cience ince

the Greekperiod

maybe looked upon

as

additions o

Aristotle's eginnings

nd corrections

f

his

errors.

This is particularlyruefor hesciences f nanimate

nature. But there

s much ruth

n

it

too for

he sci-

ences of

animate

nature-the

sciences

n which his

chief esearches

ere

made.

But,

foundational s were

Aristotle's

ttributes

s

a

naive

naturalist,

more definitive

f

him were his

attirbutes

s

a philosophical

naturalist.

For the

problem of knowledge

was his

main concern, s

everybody nows,

n

his "First

Philosophy"called

Metaphysicsy later

students) nd

in his

group

of

treatises enerally

alledby

his successorshe

Organon,

orLogic. The final est fhow far heman ucceeded

in

carrying

ut

his grand roject

must

esought

here.

Far

be

it

from

me

to presumemyself ompetent

o

apply

his

est ully. My

task s

much maller.

It is

only

that

of finding

he use

Aristotlemade

of his



4

THE

QUARTERLY

REVIEW OF

BIOLOGY

termentelecheia

n

his treatment f the problem f

knowledge, ith a view to learningwhether e could

use it, when speaking s a philosophicalnaturalist,

consistently ith his use of it when speaking s a

naive naturalist. My effortspeak for themselves,

chieflyn the portion f this articlehere presented.

Sincethey ontainmymost mportantestrictionsn,

and deviations rom heAristotelianeachings make

this

expiativeremark:Allusion was made above to

thepatent act hat hevastprogress fnatural cience

sinceAristotle's imehas consisted argely n adding

to and correcting, hat he did. Adding nd correct-

ing thus s in the very ssence f naturalknowledge.

Especially

s this trueof such

knowledge s belongs

to the realmcultivated y naive naturalists. Why,

then, hould we not expect hat something f these

processeswould operate n the realm cultivated y

philosophical aturalists?But thenature f cientific

and

philosophic nowledge

would

ustify

he

xpecta-

tion

hat ddition

nd

correction ould play

far

esser

parts here. Gcneralization, bstraction, deation,

reason, bringing reat massesof sense data under

common iewpoint, re ust

what make

philosophical

naturalism s an indispensable orrelate of

naive

naturalism,

he two

together onstituting

aturalism

in its full meaning.

Whatever f

merit rdemerit

ay elong

o

Aristotlc

in mankind's fforto know itself nd the world of

which t is a part, his much, ccording

o

my

nter-

pretation, ill stand o his credit s long as thisdesire

and

effort

hall

continue:

He

saw,

as none

before

im

and

few since,

have

seen, that

success

n the

Great

Enterprizes contingent pon the acceptance

f

the

Universe oth as

One

Whole and as Manyparts

aken

one

by one,

to

constitute

he

whole.

Any nterpreta-

tionofAristotle hatwould class

him

s

a

sub-natural-

istic atomist r elementalist r as a supra-naturalistic

"holist,"

is

untrue o

the

deepest ature

f the

man.

So far s the ground fthis nterpretations reduc-

ible to a minimum f singlewords,

hose

wordsare:

Abvagts

dunames), power,potentiality;

E4pyeta

(energeia), ctivity,ctuality:

nd

EvreXkxeta

entel-

echeia) completeeality,ulfilment.

f these

he

ast s

far-and-away

he most

mportant

ince

t takes ac-

count fnot

only

he

whole, anywhole, but

of

all

its

constituent

arts,

nd

of

ts

coming

o

fulfilment

y

a

course

f

ndividual

development.

A

postscript

o

those,

ome

of

themfriends r

ac-

quaintances, thers ersonally nknown ome,who

have

made

valuable

comments

nd criticisms n the

portion

f

the article

lreadypublished:

t is a

great

satisfaction

o

me,

and

will, hope, be reassuring

o

readers enerally, hatin every

ase these

commen-

taries

some

ofthem rom

ighly ompetent

echnical

sources) gree hat the main

point of my contention

is well taken.

For reasonsthat seem

obvious t is impracticable

to take advantagenow of all the useful uggestions

givenme. Butwhen nd f he rticle omes to publi-

cation n thewhole ofwhich t was written s a part,

these and such furtheruggestions s may come, I

certainly ount on for

mprovementsf that whole.

II

CAUSE AND THE

WHOLE-AND-ITS-PARTS

In

the firstnstallment fthis essay we

carried he examination

fthe

concept

f

a

whole-and-its-parts,s worked out to a

large extent by

Aristotle,

ar

enough to

see something

f

what is involved

when

theconcept

s

applied

to

individual

human

beings.

But

very

much more remains o

be

seen

n

this direction.

The "complete

reality" (entelecheia)f

such

a

being certainly

ncludes he entire

gamutof its conscious

as well

as infra-

conscious) experiences.

Now, nothing

s more ertain

han

hat

within

these

experiences

re

the

most

exalted

aspects

of rational and

spiritual

life

on

the one hand, ndthemostunquali-

fiedly hysicalaspects

of nutritional nd

sexual

feeling

nd

ction

onthe

otherhand.

What,

from his

standpoint,

id

Aris-

totle do for these

aspects

of

human ife?

Two

negativebut yetimportant

nswers

are readilygiven:

i)

We may be surehe

did not

overlook

or minimize he

reality

and mportancef

ither

spect.

We know

him

to

have

been too good

as

both

natu-

ralist nd philosopher or hat; X)wemay

be

sure

he

could not

possibly,

however

capably

he

might ry,

e

fully

uccessfuls

to either

aspect.

His

knowledge

of

the

structure nd actions of

animals

and

of

natural bodies generallywas muchtoo

scanty

nd

error-pervaded.

onsequently,

in

striving

o answer

ur

question,

we must

follow the course

pursued

hus

far

n

this

study.

We mustexamine

what

Aristotle



ARISTOTLE AND

ENTELECHEIA

5

knew nd thought

nd did in the light

of

what moderns

now nd think nd do.

The examinationmay well begin

with

a more careful crutinizing nd appraise-

ment hanwe haveyetmadeof the factual

data

now

n

our

possession

n

their earing

on

the problem

f the causal relations e-

tween a body

in

its wholeness

and the

parts of which

it is composed. Readers

of the Aristotelianwritingshardlyneed

reminding urther

f the relationof this

problem o Aristotle's

our usual method

of

investigation,"

the method,

namely,

ofanalyzing whole into its parts. But

sufficientoticehas not yet been taken

of

the relationbetween his problem nd

the

Aristoteliandeasof a whole-and-its-parts

and

of form nd

matter. With nearly

ll

of

modern cience

he

notion

has

much he

forceof a religiousdogma that

to

ana-

lyze a compound

nto its least parts

s to

explain that compoundcausally.

Or at

anyrate, o the dogma holds, if in a par-

ticular

case the

explanation

s not quite

ultimate, his is

because the analysis

has

not yet gone far

enough. The ultimate

goal of explanations, per e,

where naly-

sis ends. So

far

s

the nner ature

f om-

pounds

is

concerned, ausality

works

in

one directiononly, i.e.,

from

parts

and

elements oward

the whole.

Indeed,

so

far

as concerns he

nature f

compounds,

it is hardly oo muchto saythat cause is

conceived to

be

that which

the parts,

especially

he east

parts,

do to and

for he

compounds hey

compose.

Sucha

notion s

that

body

n

tswhole-

nessmay act causallyon its parts

notonly

has almost no place

in

modern

cience,

but

with the

ultra-analytic

chool

such

a

notion s heresy

nd should be

treated

s

such. Cause mustbe so conceivedand

defined s to exclude

he notion.

Something

fthescope

and

depth

of

the

Aristotelian isagreement

ith this posi-

tion s

known oeveryone cquainted

with

theAristotelian

writings.

The

involvement f the idea of

cause

in

these writings s of course one of

the

characteristics nd one of the specially

hardand controversial

hings bout

them.

A

brief xamination f thisquestion

ppearsthe

more opportune t present

ecause of whatGeneral

Smuts as givenus or

rather, as notgivenus)

on the

question. No one can,

think, ead Holism nd Evo-

lution nd

otherwritings f

his

uthor n this

general

subject

without eingdeeply mpressed. But for

me,

at

least, the mpressions

considerably

mixed

wing

tothe fact hat find oevidence, ither irect r in-

direct, hatthe

authorhas

studied

eriously,

f

at

all,

the works

of Aristotle

n

their

earings

n the

prob-

lem

fwholenessSmuts,

925, I93I).

Modern

cience,

biology especially,has

taken

much

cognizance

of some of

the

toughest f these

things.

A

generaldis-

cussion

f

the

controversial

atters

ere s

not tobe thought f,nor

would t be

more

than lightly elevanto ourmain urpose.

Thereare, however,

hree

things

n

the

Aristotelian eachings boutcause hat

are

sharply

elevant o

our

purpose.

Two of

these,

the material ause and the

formal

cause,

have

been

discussed lmost

ndlessly

in

the

past. The third,

the

principle f

multiple ause, appears

to

have received

little

f

any

close

attention.

Yet the evi-

dence that Aristotle

ecognized

his

prin-

cipletosome xtents conclusive ndseems

more

ignificant

or

stimating

herelation

of his

knowledge

nd

thought

o

modern

knowledge and thoughtthan

has been

appreciated.

One

piece

of

evidence n the

point

s

this

-Following

the

definitionf

thefour

auses

n

the

"Philosophical

Lexi-

con"

we

read:

"These,

then,

re

the

auses,

and this s

thenumber

f their

kinds,but

the varieties fcauses remanynnumber.

. .

.

Causes

are

spoken

of

n

many

senses"

(Metaphysics

OI3b

z8-3o

Ross

trans.)

Al-

though

many

llustrations, y

nferencet



6

THE

QUARTERLYREVIEW OF BIOLOGY

least, of like

purport ould be given, the

statementtselfwill have to suffice.

We turn now to

what I interpret

s

really a

modernization f one aspect

of

Aristotle's ormal ause. That aspect, x-

pressed

n

terms onsonant

with the grow-

ing demands of theoretical

biology,

s

that

o

the

xtent

Nvhich

s

certainlyarge)

that

Aristotle's dea of

form s the lineal

forerunner

f modernmorphology,

his

formal ause s the inealforerunnerf

the

idea that

a living compoundwhole is

as

truly causal of the organism

s

are

the

parts r elements f which t is composed.

I

venture

o express, ogmatically

t first,

what it

seems

o me the

modern

osition

is or soon must be, on

this question:

Every hole,

specially

very

ivingwhole,cts

causally

n

ts parts s well s being

cted

n

causally

y

tsparts.

The interactionfthe parts

f any body

to

make

that

body

alive

is

now

so

far

un-

derstood hat it is doubtful f the most

extreme

articleist

n

any

of

the ciences

f

living

naturewould defend

he

proposition

that

ny

of

heparts,

ven he

most

minute

and

supposedly

otent, roduce,

ustper e,

the

aliveness

of

an organism.

True,

one

often hears that the atoms

of

modern

physics-orperhaps

more

xactly

he

elec-

trons

nd

protons, ne

or

both,-must be

alive.

But

those who

express his view

admit,of course, hatthis atomic life s

quite

differentrom he obvious

ife of any

particular lant or animal.

For nobody

would

seriously rgue

that an

oak

tree's

aliveness

nd

a

man's

aliveness

re

exactly

the

same,

even

though

the electrons nd

protons f the two are the

same.

So it seems

fair

o

say

that there s

now

general agreement

mong

competent

tu-

dents hat ivingwholes aredependentn

the

interaction mongtheir parts.

The

reciprocal

ction of the parts-theirreac-

tion

to

one

another-their

ausal

action,

each

upon

each-are

productive

f results

in the form f bodies and actions different

from he parts. There is no longer any

factual rcriticallyogical ground or old-

ing thatbecause bacterium r an amoeba

or a jellyfish r a dog or a man is alive,

thereforehe atoms of carbon, nitrogen,

oxygen

and

the rest are alive and were

alive before ver they combined o make

these

organisms.

The

indubitablefacts

compel

he

conclusion hat the potentiali-

tiesof

the toms re uch hatwhen hey

n-

teract mong themselves nd combine o

make

argecompound odies,

f

the inter-

action nd combination ccur nder roper

conditions, he potentialities f

he

atoms

become

actualities as

the

charactersor

qualities or attributes f the particular

organisms.

Even

vitalists, especially

f

working biologists,

would

probably go

this far

n

recognizing he potency f

the

partsof organisms.

Now this

modernly equisite onception

ofpotentiality nd actuality s in full ac-

cord

with the general enor f the Aristo-

telian

teaching.

Crucial

for

the interpretation

f the

phenomena

s the

question

f

the

"proper

condition"for ctualizing he potentiali-

ties

as indicated. And here the Aristo-

telian

theory, esting argely

on

logical

grounds, s distinctly uperior o modern

theory,which lso rests argely

n

logical

grounds.

With

the

superiority

f the Aristotelian

over

he modernogic

in

the case

we

shall

not

here concern urselves ince

we have

touched ts

ganglionic

enter o to

speak,

under heheading The

Law

of dentity."

"Law of Contradiction"would probably

have

been more appropriate

or the

dis-

cussion here

referredo-if

the laws

of

"formal ogic" mustbe noticedat all in

such discussions.

But the

concrete

acts

are,

of

course,

the

point:

A

human

in-

dividual

n

the

baby stage

of his

develop-

ment

s in

that

stage and is

not

in

the



ARISTOTLE AND ENTELECHEIA

7

adult tage. Otherwise tated he

harac-

teristics

f

the adultarepresent

n the

baby

only potentially.

Much shoddy thinking

about, and worse dealing with, children

seemsto result argelyfrom isregard f

these psychobiologicalfacts.

Our main

point

now is-

oncernedwith

fact

rather

than

with

logic. For we are going to

point

o

facts

with

which the Aristotelian

concept

f formal

ause as definedbove)

is more asily harmonizable han the con-

ceptofelemental-atomicauseof present-

day biological orthodoxy.

NUTRITION, METABOLISM, AND

THE

WHOLE-

AND-ITS-PARTS

The chemistry f assimilation nd me-

tabolism

n

living bodies s

now too well

understood o permit ny nformed erson

to

repeat, xcept s

a

reminiscence

r

joke,

theold

epigram,

One

is

what

he

eats."

The facts-in-commonetween

he

basic

processes n an organism nd in a flame

are an

explanatory ommonplace

f

our

day.

Consequently,ust s no ordinary

mortal

can

be fooled nto believing hat the stick

ofwood

alongsidehis fireplace,

r the

sur-

rounding ir are "essentially he same" as

the flame

nd the warm room

that wood

and air will

cause

f

they ome together

n

the

rightway-even as little can

such

a

mortalbefooled ntobelieving hat he or

anyofhisfriendsre"essentiallyhe ame"

as the

food

they at,

the

air

theybreathe,

and

the water

hey

drink.

In

connectionwith this allusion

to the

similarity etween espiration

nd

combus-

tion

further

eferencehouldbe

made o the

greatpartplayedby the concepts f poten-

tiality nd actuality

n

Aristotle's hinking

andtheseeminglynsignificantart these

play

in

the speculative hinking f some

moderns. Of course, no "dirt farmer,"

or

cook,

or

engineer,

r

practical hemist,

or

maker r

user

of

explosives, r,

n

fact,

anybody acedwith almost any practical

problem, gets on independently f the

principles houghhe may not thinkmuch

about them.

If, however, we attempt o push the

organismal onception eyond he ertainty

of the interaction f partsto produce he

living organism, we find ourselves in

trouble. Especially

re

we troubledfwe

try

o

push

the

conception

with

reference

to human rganisms. However,we shall

now see that f one singlesout himself s

the human

rganism

n

whichto

testthe

conception, egets mportant elpfor he

generalproblem.

I

am fully onvinced

hat

themental nd

physical ctivities nvolved

n

my think-

ing and writing hese ines

are

caused by

the

way myphysical arts

utilize

he

air I

breathe,

he

food

I

eat,

and

the

water

drink.

But

I

am

absolutely

certain no

physiologist

r

physicist,

r

chemist,

r

anycombinedffortsftheirs an discover

by analyzing

me

exactly

how

my parts

act and nteract ith

the

ubstances take,

to

produce

hese

effects.

My certainty

s

thus positive

for the

reason

that

by

the

time

my analyzers

each the crucial

stage

of their

laboratoryundertaking, ,

the

living organism ow sitting

t

my desk,

thinking

nd

writing,

will

be

dead and

gone

for several

days

at

least.

In

other

words,my analyzerswill be trying o do

one or

theother

or both)

of

wo

mpossible

things: i) Trying

o

observe

ausal

proc-

esses

n

actuality

hich went

on and were

ended, many days

or

weeks

ago;

or

(X)

trying

o discover

by

deductive

easoning

parts

and

substances

hat

possess

the

po-

tentialitiesfor

accomplishments

f

man

which the

analyzers now,

but

only

from

the records. They learn nothing about

these

accomplishmentsrom

heir

nalyses.

The

thingsthey

are

trying

o

do we are

sure

re

mpossible

irst nd foremost

rom

examining ritically

ur

own

knowledge-



8

THE

QUARTERLYREVIEW

OF

BIOLOGY

getting processes.

But

our assurance s

greatly trengthenedy earning hat this

impossibility

was recognizedmore than

two thousandyears go by

Aristotle nd

has been recognized imeand again since

by competent tudents.

Accordingly, eing

certainthat, how-

ever

far

aboratory

tudy

f the

partsand

substances

f me

maygo

in

explainingmy

thinking, nd my acting generally,

t

is

bound

to fail at the mostcrucial

point,

no argument, ust

as

such-argument,

that is,

that

may

profess

o

transcend

entirely ll sense data-could convince

me that

,

myself

hole,

m

as truly

vera

causa

of all

I

am and

do,

as are

any

of the

partsof

me or the

substances

which

enter

into my composition.

After

dmitting,

fully ndgladly,

ll that nalysis

an

prove

thatmyparts

nd

external

ubstances

on-

tributeomaking

me

what

certainly m,

I

am not fully xplained

until

my very

self mrecognizeds also causal of me.

At least to the

extent hat

mythoughts

and acts

and conscious

experiences

iffer

from hose of any

otherperson, see no

causal

explanation

of the fact

consistent

with

great

masses

of

indubitable

natural

knowledge ther

han that

I in

my ndi-

vidual wholeness

ct

throughmypartsto

get

from

he

air

I

breathe,

he

food

I

eat,

andthewater drink,

he

energy ecessary

forproducing he thoughts nd acts and

conscious

xperiences

hus

uniquelymine.

It seems hatmy

ssimilationnd

metabolism

are

s

specifically

ine

s

are

ny fmy onscious

acts or

other

onscious

xperiences.

But as

I

look around

find reat num-

bers

of

other ndividual

organisms

o

like

myself ut also

so differingromme and

all other

ndividuals, hat

am

obligedto

suppose hey, oo, areuniquely rivileged

in

their ssimilation ndmetabolic owers.

Nor

s

this

ll.

Extendingmy nventory

of

other ndividual

rganisms notice

not

only endlessly light

(relatively)

differ-

ences monggreat

numbers f ndividuals,

but

also endlessdifferenceshat are

byno

means

light, nd thatare endless n

kind

and

grade. For

instance my

inventory

containsnot onlywhite men,blackmen,

redmen nd so on, but

fishes nd trees

nd

amoebae.

And then

recall that by al-

mostendless abors men

have discovered

that,mirabile

ictu,

ll

theseendlesskinds

and

gradesof

ndividuals xist, grow, nd

act

by

taking

from he

world external

o

them

the same

fewsimple materials

nd

using

them o theirown individual

needs

and ends, ust as I do

How could any botanistor

chemist r

philosopherexplain,

causally, an euca-

lyptus

tree and an oak tree that

have

flourished or ifty ears

within

a

hundred

yards

of each

other,

heirroots

buried

n

soil

that

any expert

would pronounce

essentially

he same and their

branches,

leaves

and blossoms

bathed in the very

same air and sunshine,without ncluding

the two trees hemselves s causal

factors

-if

anysuch factors re

recognized?

The truth

s,

the

thing

annot

be

done.

Nor

can it

be

seriouslyttempted

ithout

ignoring

r

perverting ome of the most

deep-rooted

nd

wide-reaching rinciples

of

both

common

nd

technical

nowledge.

And such

attempting

s the sortof

thing

Aristotle haracterizeds thechildishness

of trying o explain the obvious by the

unobvious.

This

problem f

the

way livingbeings,

men

particularly,

se materials rom

x-

ternalnature s so

important

hat

we shall

do

well

to look at

it

from

till

another

angle.

Reflect on

what

Mayow, Priestley,

Scheele,

Lavoisier

and whoever lse had

a

hand in the business,did in discovering

oxygen. Reallythey

id

not

beginby

dis-

covering

gas, having

this

name.

They

began

with

certain

bservations,

hat s

to

say

withcertain ense

xperiences.

As

they




9

worked

along,

these

experiences

ecame

to

them

ensedata,

which

they

ecognized

as

the

sensible ualities,

or

properties

f

a certaingaseous body. What Mayow

calledfire ir

igno-aerian) nd

Priestley

e-

phlogisticated

ir, representhis stage

in

thecourse

f

the discovery.

Finally

came

Lavoisierwho by adding

ertain

uantita-

tive

observations

o the (chiefly)qualita-

tive

observations

f

his

predecessors,

ecog-

nized he

body s notreally

a

kind

of

air,

but

o

distinct

s to deserve

name

by

tself.

The word,

oxygen,which

he devised,was

chosen,notice,becauseofwhat inhis ex-

perience,

was its most haracteristic

rop-

erty,

hat of generating

in combination

with other

bodies)

still

other, ompound,

bodies

hatwere

sharp"

to the taste and

in

their

action on

many bodies.

The

newly iscovered

ody

was acid-producing.

Every

tep n this discoverys

in every

other hat

was evermade

n

any

division

of naturalknowledge, nvolved basically

senseexperiences, ccepted

ater as sense

data,

till

ater s sensible ualities

r prop-

ertiesof external odies,which qualities,

or

properties re peculiar

to, or

charac-

teristic,or definitive

f

the bodies.

In

other

words, the observed,r sensible

har-

acteristics

f

nybody zre

ot nly eculiar

o

that

body,

ut are those hings y

whichwe

KNOW

THE BODY.

Andnow comes stillmorevitalpoint.

It is knownto everyone

hat thehistory

of the

discovery

of

oxygen Mayow

to

Lavoisier,

about a hundred ears

ago), is

involvedwith the basic

similarity etween

respiration

and combustion-between

breathing

nd

burning.

So much

a

part

of common

knowledge

s

the dependence

of the

activities f living bodies,

t least

ofall higherplantsand animals,on oxy-

gen,

hat hemerest eferenceo t s

enough

forthis

discussion.

See then he onclusion

hat hediscovery

of

oxygen

eems

to forceupon us: While

Mayow nd

the thers

ere iscovering,y heir

powers fobservation,he ensible ropertiesf

thisgaseous ody,hey ere lsodemonstrating

by

their

owers f iving hat his amebody

possesses ife-givingropertieshat are dis-

coverable

nlyby IVING AND PERFORMING

EXACTLY

THOSE ACTS THEY DID PERFORM

IN MAKING

THE

DISCOVERING.

(Ritter nd

Bailey,

9Z8,

p.

50o)

The

incalculably ast number fpotenti-

alities

of

oxygen

whichthis

nterpretation

requiresmight stagger, ven mystify, s

except or herecognitionhat hepotenti-

alities

of

oxygen,

ike

those

of all other

bodies,

are

really

non-existentorus mor-

tals

except

s

actualizedby the nteraction

of the

bodies

with other

bodies.

Were

if not

for

the

living that was done by

Mayow

and

theothers, he ife-giving o-

tentialities f

oxygen would never have

been

actualized and discovered. Nor is

this all we know thatdoes muchtoward

saving

us from

eing hopelesslymystified

by

our conclusions. Not

only

are

living

men ndotherorganisms ecessary or c-

tualizing

ome of

the

potentialities

f

the

oxygen, but

various familiar

substances

which

constitute he

food and

drink

of

organisms

re

necessary. Carbon

and

ni-

trogen

re

particularly

n

evidence

s

such

necessities. The

truth

s, the entire

mass

of

knowledgepossessedby

us

moderns

s

available

as

aids to

making

uch a

concep-

tion

of

oxygen and

all

the other hemical

elements

pon

which

ife

depends)

ntelli-

gible

to us. It

is

intelligibleo us because

it

is

the

reasoned

ounterpartf our experi-

ence

s

living organisms.

If

we desire o think

heproblem r the

basis

of

some

theory

f

cause,

we

ought

tofind,twouldseem, enuine atisfaction

in

the

concept

of

multiple cause. For

here

many upporting

acts

from

modern

science

are

available,

as well as the fact



THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY

thatthe dea is recognizablen the history

of knowledge nd thought s far back

as

Aristotle t least.

One may ustifiably onder, t seems o me,whether

the bewildering iscoveries eing made by physics

and chemistryn our day on atomic tructurend

ac-

tionmaynotmean hat ensory nowledge s not

now

touching he hem, o to speak, of the garment

hat

has been and is the common xperience f all living

things.

THE WILL AND THE

WHOLE-AND-ITS-PARTS

From

the

light one may gain on

the

generalproblemof a whole-and-its-parts

by studying

imself s a chemical

trans-

former

o to

speak,

and

then

byasserting

his "natural ights"

s such

transformer,

I

am encouraged

o

take

a still farther

tep

in the same direction.

The

aspect

f

myself

o

which now turn

is that

of

mywanting hings, esolving

o

try

or

hem,

nd

finally ctually arrying

out the resolution s far as possible.

All

this

s

so obviously

t

bottom

n af-

fairof

my very

wn

that no one

would,

I

presume, entureo

nterfereithmemuch.

If, however,

set

up

the contention hat

the

"I"

is

myselfwhole,

is

I, Body-and-

Soul, Mind-and-matter,

ll

an

inseparable

One, ampretty

ureto

be reminded hat

the

interpretation

lmost

universally

c-

cepted

n

such cases

is

very

differentrom

that suggest. True, t would probably

be

granted,

hat

my wanting

nd therest

are

undoubtedlymine, "But," my

correc-

tors

re

quite

ure o remind

me,

"it is

your

will

and

its

adjuncts

that

really

wants,

resolves,

nd executes.

Of

course

this is

largely dependent

on

your body parts,

especially

when

the

executing stage

is

reached.

But

so well-nigh

universalhas

been, and still is, the idea that human

experiences

f the sort

you

mention

re

the

expression

f

something

r othernot

closely dependent,

t least not

dependent

in

a fashion that

is

analytically

demon-

strable,

n

your odyparts nd substances,

it seems heview musthave a solid basis of

truth nd so shouldbe retained. Further-

more, ince the term,Will, appears o be

as good a name s anyfor his analytically

undemonstrable omething, that, too,

may

as well

be retained

with its

original

meaning."

So here

we

are, quite

innocent f intent

or even of preawareness,ace to facewith

the interminable roblem of the will.

But since the path that has led us to it is

clearly

marked

hough

not

much

raveled,

we can not honorably void facing the

problem quarely. And here gain must

intrudemy personal xperiences.

Being a hopeless addict to the habit of

reading n bed at nightwhen by well es-

tablished

aws

ofhealth

should

be asleep,

I

suddenly indmyself anting n orange.

Knowing hatthere s a bag ofthisfruit

n

theadjoiningroom, decidethatas soon

as I have finishedhe chapter am now

reading "Reflex Action and Theism"

in

Wm. James'

The Will to

Believe)

will

go

and

gratifymy

want

want

of

being

nour-

ished nd ofhaving ertain ther eltneeds

satisfied).

The end

of the

chapter aving

been

reached,

close

the

book, ay

t

aside,

throw

back

the

bed

covers, et

out

of

bed,

go

to the

orange-containingoom,

reach

into the

bag, bring

ut an

orange, arry

t

to a table, open a drawerwhich I know

contains

hetools convenient

or

reparing

the fruit

o be eaten,

nd

so

complete

he

preparationorgratifyingsatisfying?)he

wants

now

upon

me.

Then

I

go back

to

bed

and

think

bout

what

I

have

done.

Two

points

connectedwith

my doings

seem

deserving

of

special

attention.

I

notice that had I supplementedll the

pronouns eferring

o

myself-

I,"

"me,"

"my" by

such nouns as

mind,memory,

thought,desire, atisfaction,

should

not

thereby

ave increased

y

one iota

my

un-



ARISTOTLE AND

ENTELECHEIA

II

derstanding,

y

achieving, rmy ense

of

benefiting.

f

say

have

a

desire

r feel

needfor

n orange r

anythinglse, surely

meanno

more han f say desire

r need

the hing. Wheneverspeak of thought

or

a

conception s

"enteringmymind"

I

am only aying

n a round-about ay that

I think

r that conceive,

o andso. The

purposes n making

our activities into

abstract

ouns seemvarious nd

are often

farfrom bvious.

There s one

purpose,

however,

hat s clear

enough, n general:

It is a convenient ay

of huntingntothe

background he puzzlingquestionof ex-

actly

why and how one acts

as he does.

When can say

"my choice is

made,"

I

have a feeling f unequivocalness,

f final-

ity, about

what I have

done, that s more

satisfying

han if

I

say

"I

have chosen."

In

the

latter case

I

feel somewhat

more

inclined,

erhaps mpelled,

o explain,to

analyze,

what

I

have done.

Sincethese entences ere writtent is with very

great atisfaction

hat have read the ust-published

book

(Korzybski, 933)

in

which the

whole

subject

of theuse ofgeneralized

nd

abstractwords

s

given

the

most

thoroughgoing

reatment

t

has ever

re-

ceived, o

far s

I

know.

Notice

with me now what

I

do when

I

decide

upon

a

particular

ourse

of action

and then

eally

ct

n

accordance ith that

decision.

When

I

decide

in

conformity

withmywantingan orange,to go, at a

specified

uture

ime,

and do

the

things

believe

will

satisfymywants,

he

question

of what and

how

many parts

of me are

involved

n

making

he

decision,

s surely

averycomplex,

nd at some

points,

bscure

question. Thanks,

however, o the

splen-

did

researches f modern

psychologists,

physiologists,

istologists, nd

biochem-

ists, have,ormayhave, muchofthe an-

swerto

the

question.

But

not

an item

n

all this

knowledge

will

have any

meaning

for he

special

case in

hand,withoutme,

living

organism, s

the

field

f

operation.

But

t is when put the decision-making

aspect of me to the test of my executing

aspects that many of my most concrete,

most onspicuous arts, rove heir

ole

n

the case. Throwing ack bed covers, et-

ting ut ofbed,walkingto the nextroom,

and

all

the rest-the body members n-

volved no five-year-old ill hesitate to

name. Nor will anybody f down-right

intellectualhonesty refuse o grant my

contention hat

they-hands and feet, or

instance-are trulymine and that I truly

do move them.

Furthermore, ome of

my less familiar, hough no less certain

internalmembers o one would think of

ignoring

r

of questioningmy ownership

of-nor

the fact of

my using

them.

But

when

the

question

s raised of

what,

ex-

actly,

ll these

nternal arts are and how

many

here re

ofthem, ome of the diffi-

culties

n the

way ofgetting irect bser-

vational answers are

undoubtedlyvery

great. My chromosomes nd genes, for

instance,-not o speak

of

my toms, lec-

trons and

protons,-how

am I

to learn

theirpart

in

the business? Accordingly

the

xpert nalystsmight roceed, ypically

and legitimately,

o

give hypothetical

n-

swers, nswers,

hat

s

if really egitimate)

intended to be provisional only. And

"provisional" would

have the

two-fold

reference

f

making

he answer hatwould

seemmost ikelyto be true, ndofaiding

furtherffort

oward

he

real,

.e.,

the

ob-

servationally ased,

nswer.

Notice

now

what

my

own attitude nd

view

must

be

in all

this. So

far as

my

experiences,

hether onsciousor uncon-

scious,

were

concerned,

he

observational

distinctness

r

indistinctness

f the

parts

involved,

s not

of the

slightest

moment.

Mydesire or norange,mydecision ogo

after

ne,

and

my

actual

going,

getting,

and

eating t, might

ave

been

s

truly or-

tions

of

my

conscious

experience

when

I

was

a

five-year-old

s when

was a

seventy-



THE

QUARTERLY

REVIEW

OF

BIOLOGY

five-year-old.

uch bjective nowledge

f

my parts nd their

ctivities nvolvedas I

have gainedbyhook or crook,has

not cut

the least figure

n the experiences

hem-

selves. Nor does it matter scintilla, o

far s my onscious xperiences concerned,

that theparts ofme by which

I

want

an

orange efy he nalyst's

ffortst complete

discovery.

Such

parts

serve

me

just

as

certainly nd readily

s do suchcrass

parts

as hands,feet, nd mouth.

Well,

I

ask myself, ave

I

real

ground

for upposing hat any desiring,

eciding,

resolving, nd executing may do in any

realm or at any

level, are teetotally

dif-

ferent

from

my

doings in the

realm of

orange ating?

True enough,my wantings,

decidings,

resolvings, nd executings, nvolved

in,

for

xample,

he

part

took

in

producing

the Scripps

nstitution

f

Oceanography,

were remarkably

different rom those

in the citrus example. But, really, so

far as

I

can see,

the differenceoncerned

goal

and

operative

etails ather

han

basic

facts. My act,

or state, of wanting,

ust

per e,appears o

have

been he

same

n

the

two

cases. To

want an

institution

or he

purpose fthesatisfactionshat

knowing

the

Pacific

cean and ts

iving

nhabitants

might bring-wherein

does

the

wanting

qua wanting

ifferrom

wanting

n

orange

forthe purposeof the satisfactions hat

eating

it

might

bring?

As

right

now

I

ransack

my

memory

n

connection

with

the

two series

of

experiences,

t

seems

to

me iterally

rue

that the half-hour eries

connected

with

the

orange

was

in

essence

a

fair

epitome

of the two-decade series

connected

with

the Institution.

That

the

decisions,

he

executive

fforts,

ndthe

satisfactionsnd dissatisfactions iffered

quantitativelymmeasurably

n the two

series s

too

obvious

to need

asserting.

As

to

qualitative

ifference-well

robably,

therewas

some,

specially

n

the matter f

satisfactions.There s, it seems o

me, a

difference

etween physical atisfaction

(nutritional or nstance)and a psychical

satisfaction discovery of truth for in-

stance),that s fundamentallyualitative.

Perhaps the differenceere involves

the

very ssence f uality s doesthe

difference

between

the

different

enses-sight

and

sound-for example.

But

reallywhat seems o me thedeepest

difference

n

the two series

of

experiences

concerns

atisfaction s contrastedwith

dissatisfaction.

f

my range

ase

had had

in it (as it did not have) the element f

obstacles

to

be

met

and entireor partial

defeats o

endure, s, of course, he

Insti-

tution erieshad, the epitome f the atter

by

the

formerwould

have

been more

nearly xact. For nstance ad my

wanting

involved the getting of a whole

meal

insteadof an orange; and had the

getting

of

the

meal

depended argelyon myown

decisionsand executive fforts, ith my

seriousculinary imitations,

he

epitome

would have

been

all thatcould

reasonably

be

expected

of an

epitome.

Nor

would

the

case have

been undamentallyifferent,

so

far

s

I

can

see,

had what wanted

been

a

fortune, woman's hand

in

marriage,

the

production

f the

greatest

cientific

discovery

ver

made,

the

greatestpoem

ever

written,

or the

greatest

social or

governmentaleform ver needed.

It will

never

o to let theviews

here xpressed

appear

s

though holly solable

rom

ertainther

views.

Of

these other iews,"particularly

o

be

mentionedsthat s tohowwanting,he irst

ember

of he

eries,

omeso

be;

and hat s tohow he ctual

acts,

he

ast

members

f

the

eries,ccomplish

he

satisfaction

t which

he whole eries

ims.

But

while

t

would ot

o to

eave

his

matter

ntouched,

thus

eaving

he eader

nawareso

far s this

ext

s

concerned)f ts xistence,hepresentationf these

"other iews"would

nvolve

roblems

ithwhich

the

present

iscussion

s

not concerned.

t

would

be out

of

place

here. Andwe

must

ot

permitny-

thing

o

divert ur ttentionromhe

main ask

n

hand-that

f

discovering,

f

possible,

ow far he



ARISTOTLE

AND

ENTELECHEIA

I3

interpretationhat eeminglymust e

given

ntelecheia

is

applicable o man.

On

the basis of

a lifetime f conscious

experiences fwhich the two

herenoticed

are amples, ndof hesuperposition pon

these of much objective

knowledge, I

seem

ustified

n

defining hatmost uthor-

ities would call

my Will as follows: The

word, Will," is a

highbly

eneralized

oun

orname

orwhat ,

a livingwhole, ausemy

parts o

do towardecuring hat believe

ill

be

good orme.

Such

definition

s

likely o strike

manypersons

s

tooshockingly bsurd o merit minute's ttention.

Nevertheless, submit

t with confidencehat

after

while t

will be

recognizeds meriting uch ttention.

One

thing

hat

ontributeso my confidences purely

historical. A glance t the ndexof any

good work

on the

history

f

philosophy ufficeso discover

hat

a

theory,

r

doctrine f ome ort,

f

thewill

has

been

near he

enter f he hief ystems f

philosophy

rom

Augustine o

Nietzsche ndBergson.

Now I

submit

hat

no one

half

awake

to the mod-

ern

pirit f science

and philosophy could

presume

for minute hat a theory f the will which didnot

involve a sound

theory f mental ife

could be

even

approximately

rue r

moderately seful.

Accordingly

he

treatmentf

the

will

bypsycholo-

gists since psychology

as claimed ts independence

of

traditional

hilosophy nd

ics

alliance

with the

natural

ciences

eems

highly ignificant.

To

go into this subject s

extensively

s

even

,

a

non-professional

n

either hilosophy r

psychology

might

go, would be unjustifiable. But a few

speci-

ally relevant

oints

an

be easily ndicated.

On

the

evidence f the ong chapter, Will," inJames'The

PrinciplesfPsychologye know

that this

psycholo-

gisthad no misgivings

in theory

t

least) about the

will's

being subdivision

fthemind nd thus

sub-

ject

to

be

treated

irst

nd foremost

y psychologists.

This

comes to

particularly harp expression

n

the

essay,

Reflex

ction nd

Theism:

From ts

first

awn

to its

highest

ctual

attainment,

e

find hatthe

cog-

nitive

aculty,

here t

appears

o

exist t

all, appears

but

s

one element

n an

organic

mental

whole,

nd

as

a

minister

o

higher

mental

owers-the powers

fthe

will." (James,

897, p.

140)

This from ames, he

professional

sychologist,

when

upon

occasion

he

turned

hilosopher.

Rather

uriously,

hen

pon

oc-

casion

Royce,

the

professional

hilosopher,

urned

psychologist,

e saw

Will

in a different

ight:

"The

word

Will'

is of

little

use,"

we

read,

"as a

purely

psychological erm,

n

the classification f

mental

life." (Royce,

908,

p.

334)

The main

point of this, forus,

is

that,

"Will" as

Royce ees t,refers to thewholeignificancef our

on-

scious ife" italics original). This was one

philoso-

pher's way of saying hat our decisions nd actions

are what

they re because of our relation o ouren-

vironment,r the world.

These views seem distinctly nticipatory f

such

other

p-to-date iews s that "Will

is

not

precisely

psychological erm, nyway, ut s a term f common

speechwhichneednotrefero anypsychological

nit.

(Woodworth,

92.1,

p.

52.3)

What ooks to me ike

a more ositive rend

oward

the

conception f will I have formulateds the nclu-

sion of t in

a set of terms or "aspects of the

total

activity of the organism." (Gates,

192.5,

p.

463)

And

indicative f psychology's till furtherdvance

in thisdirections thefact hat ome f hemost p-to-

the-minutechools ppear to makeno usewhatever f

the erm

will.

"

I ventureo suggest hat hefarthest

pointyetreached y psychology n the road to

such

a

conception f the activities f a living

whole-and-

its-parts s

I am

proposing, s the "behavior qua

molar," etforth articularly yTolman

19320.

It seems improbable that "molar" used thus

would referwithout mportant ualification o an

individual animal a man for instance) cting as a

living corporeal

whole. The

molarity ppears

to

connote

mass as activitymerely ather han

mass as

activity ogether

with

the acting body and

all

its

parts. Nevertheless he conception omes so much

nearer he

truenature f iving nimals handoesthe

conception f"behavior quamolecular"with

which

it is

contrasted,hat

it

maywell be hailedby natural

history

s

a

greatforward tep

or

pure

psychology"

to take.

We return or moment ow to the

quotation

from

Gates abouttheactivity f theorganism. Shift he

word

"total" and

make

it modify organism"

in-

stead of

"activity"

and the

phrase

would

be

readily

interpretable

n

conformity

ith

my definition

f

"will."

For "total

organism"

would

really

have

to

mean,

from he

meaning

f the whole

phrase,

what

"living

whole"

means

n

my

definition. ndeed

here

is littledoubt hat "total activity" of Gates's phrase

implies the same thing. And

in

eithercase there

would

be implied,

lmost

certainly, ristotle's

on-

ception

of

energeia

s

applied

to

living beings,

the

actual

organism cting

as a whole. But it should

be

noted hat he

concept

f

entelecheia

eems

not to

be

implied.

Ridiculously riefs the ketch resented

aboveof

a

human ndividual cting n two



I4

THE

QUARTERLY

REVIEW OF BIOLOGY

particular

ases, one at

a rather

ow, the

other

t a

rather igh,

evel of hisnormal

conscious

xistence.

But venture o

hope

the

ketch

may

go

far

oward

larifying

he

conceptionhat nboththese asesor any

other onceivable

eal

case the ndividual,

whole, hat

is to say,

the

individualcon-

sistingof

all

its

partsacting

n complete

unification,

as

themainFactor, r

Cause,

or Principle-name

t to suit

yourself.

As a precaution

gainst misunderstanding

ere

remark

hat

he onclusiontated

s not t all concerned

with questions

f

relative xcellence

r greatness, r

thereversefthese, f ndividuals. Rather, hecon-

cern s

with

the

real

nature f

any

and

every

ypical

human

ndividual-with

he

question

fwhat

ny

nd

every ypical

human ndividual

eally

s.

PROCREATION,

SEXUAL

PLEASURE,

AND

THE

WHOLE-AND-ITS-PARTS

We

pass

now

to

a

very

different

spect

of

the

central

im

ofthis

essay.

That

aim

is,

we

never

forget,

he

question

of

the

relation fAristotle's onceptionf

"

com-

plete

reality" (entelecheia)

o

the concep-

tion

of

a

whole-and-its-parts

s

applied

particularly

o

the

human

ndividual,

he

conception

being

viewed

in the

light

of

modern

knowledge.

Mindful

s we are

of

Aristotle's

great

respect

or,

nd attention o,

the phenom-

ena of

genesis,

our

previous

notice

of

a

favorite efrain

f

his

about

the

begetting

ofmenbymen sconvenientor onnecting

what

we

are now

to

present

ith

what

we

presented

arlier. It

would

be

uselessto

try

to

understand

ristotle's ttitude

as

distinguished

rom is

knowledge)

elative

to

the

problem

f

a man

as

a

"complete

reality"

without

considering

is attitude

(again

as

distinguished

rom

his

knowl-

edge)

qua

man

as a

potential

begetter

f

children.

In

passing

to

this

aspect

of the

subject

we

come

upon

defects

n

Aristotle's

gen-

eral

system

hat

are serious and

by

no

means

all

pardonable,

o

far as

I

can

see,

on the groundof meagerfactual knowl-

edge. The defectsre

n

considerablemea-

sure due either o deliberate eglect r to

faulty easoning. Hicks' referenceo this

is brief nd explicit. We read:Aristotle

"exalted thecognitive lement,

while

his

treatmentf the emotions nd the will is

wholly nadequate, ven fthe Ethics nd

the

Rhetorice called

in

to redress

he

bal-

ance" Hicks,

907,

Introduction,. xxii).

We

focus nthedefects hat

are

particu-

larly elevant o thisdiscussion. Aristotle

was not,of course, lind ither

s

a manor

as a scientist nd philosopher o the emo-

tions

and passions

of sex. We

know this

about him as

a

man from he biographic

record f

his

marriage,

is

devotion

o

h's

wife, ndhis being father.Andwe know

he

gave

real

attention o the

subject

as

scientist

and

philosopher

from various

things

n his

writings.

Take this

xample:

"Thus

there

s one

singlemoving ause,the appe-

titive aculty. For, had there eentwo, intelligence

[nous] nd appetency,which moved to action, still

theywould have done so

in

virtuc f somecharacter

common

o both. But,

as a matter f

fact, ntellect

is notfound o causemotion part rom he ppetency.

For

rational

wish s

appetency: nd,

when

anyone

s

moved n accordance

with

reason,he

is

also moved

according o rational

wish. But

appetency aymove

a

man n

opposition

o

reason,

or

oncupiscence

s

a

species

of

appetency." (De

Anima

33b

2-5,

Hicks

trans.). Although

he

work,

pithymia,

ere endered

concupiscence,

oes not

mean exual

ust

exclusively,

this meaning' long with others eemsundoubtedly

to have

been part

of Aristotle's

meaning.

Such

dis-

cussions s that

on

continence nd

incontinence

n

Book

VII

of the

Nicomacheanthics

eave no roomfor

question

on

the point.

Yet curiously nough

in

the elaborate

and on

the

whole

movingly admirable

discussions f "Love or

Friendship"

ndof

"Pleasure"

n

the

Ethics,

e find

carcely

hint f heamorous lementntherelation

between

man

and a woman It

is

hard

to

see that therewas

any ground

or

Aris-

totle's formal

teachings about

women

(about their being impotentmen, being



ARISTOTLE

AND ENTELECHEIA

clgssifiable ith children nd slaves nd so

on) other

han

the prevalent eachings

f

his age and country.

Really

were

it

not for

what

the man

gives us when he speaks as an unsophisti-

cated

zoologist,we might upposehe was

too much

of a

Puritan or highbrow or

something o discussor even thinkmuch

on

the mostdomineeringspect f sex

ife.

After his

was

written was glad

to

have my

at-

tention alledto thefact hat fewprofessionalthic-

ists

f

oday efuse o accept he raditionaleparation

of

reason ndfeeling. For examplewe read: "By en-

joyment'we are meaning ll the while a mental act,

conscious ppropriation." Fite, 19z5,

p.

2I1)

Fortunately,omeof hethingsAristotle

says

n the

oological

works

re

ufficiently

specific

nd are

significant

or ur

problem

since

they

touch

upon

the climax

of

the

sexual emotion. As would

be expected,

the most

mportant

f

these re

n

TheGen-

erationfAnimals.

In

his

devastatingrit-

icismsof thetheory ttributedoHippoc-

rates hat the semen omes from ll parts

of

the

body,

he

first f

thefour

rguments

in

support

f

thisAristotleays s: "First,

the

ntensity

f the

pleasure f coition;for

the same state

of feeling s morepleasant

if

multiplied,

nd

that

which ffects

ll

the

parts

s

multiplied

s

compared

with that

which affects

nly

one

or a

few."

(Dc

Gen.

72Ib

i5,

Platt

trans.). What specially

concerns s is the explanationofferedf

the

pleasure

of

copulation. Aristotle's

reasoning gainst he heory roposed s to

the source f

the

semen, mportant

s it

is,

concerns

us

only indirectly

now.

That

aspect

of the

problemwe noticed suffi-

ciently

n the

first

art

of

this

essay.

Obvious,

s

it

not,

that

the explanation

proposed

f he

xtent f hepleasurewould

tally verywell with the conceptionwe

are

defending

f the

whole-and-its-parts?

What,

f

anything, hen,

we

naturally sk,

has Aristotle

o

say touching

his

aspect

of the

problem? Unfortunately

hat he

says s brief

nd only nferential.

Yetthe

inferenceeemsunescapable.

"As to the

vehemencef the

pleasure

n

sexual

nter-

course,

we read, "it is

not becausethe

semencomes from ll the body, but be-

cause there s

a

strong

rictionwherefore

if

this

intercourse

s oftenrepeated

the

pleasure

s diminished

n thepersons

on-

cerned)."

(De

Gen.

3b

35)

Clear

enough,

then,

s the recognition

that the pleasureneeds

a

causal explana-

tion of some ort.

So here

t is: "And as

to thepleasurewhich

ccompaniesoition,

it is dueto emisionnot onlyofsemen ut

also

of

a

spiritus, he coming

ogether f

which precedes

he emission." (De

Gen.

72.8a

o)

Thereyou

have t

Pneuma,hatwhich

imagination

may

make of theair essential

to

life,

of

the

Zephyrs

hat

stir

he

eaves,

andof

the

tempests

hat

ash

greatbodies

of

water nto

fury.

What

an

amazing

on-

venience

or

ophisticated

hinking

n

the

absenceof factual

knowledge

Our

only nterestexcept

historic)

n

it

is as to

how thehumanorganism

would

have to

be

involved

o

make

the

theory

f

sexual

pleasure

eld

by

Aristotle onsistent

with

his factual

nd

theoretical nowledge

as

a

whole.

The

wording

f

the

ast

quotation

does

not

ndicate hatthe author

onceived

he

pleasure o be due to the involvementf

the whole

body

with the

spiritus.

But

even o whenwe have to

do with

such

un-

certainty

s

thatofhow

pneuma

ransforms

into spiritus,

agueness ven

to vagaryof

almost

any sort,may be

expected.

ARISTOTLE S

THEORY

OF REASON

AND OF

PLEASURE IRRECONCILABLE

WITH

ENTELECHEIA

The questionof how pneuma

s he

con-

ceived

t on

the

whole,

we

might

xamine

at

any

length.

But

the

futility

f

doing

so,

however

well the

task

mightbe done,



THE

QUARTERLY

REVIEW

OF

BIOLOGY

is apparent

ncewe remember

hat we are

not muchconcerned

with Aristotle's

on-

ceptions

nd

teachings,

er e. Our concern

is withtheirvalidity

s tested

by modern

knowledge. For such testingAristotle

has himselfprepared

he ground n this

case.

His

recognition

hat there s no sharp

dividing

ine

between

eason and emotion

we

have already oticed.

"Intellect," we

have heard

him

ay,"is

not

found

o cause

motion

apart fromappetency.

For ra-

tional

wish is appetency;nd,

when any-

one is moved n accordancewith reason,

he

s also moved

ccording o

rationalwish.

But appetency

maymovea

man

n

opposi-

tion to

reason,

or

oncupiscence

s a

spe-

cies of

appetency."

Put this from he

De

Anima,

biological treatise

dealing pri-

marilywith mental

henomena,longside

the

quotation iven

bove

from heDe Gen-

eratoine,

treatise ealing primarily

with

reproductivehenomena,ndnoticewhat

you

have.

The

vital

and

familiar

ruth

is presented

n a

somewhat

round-about

way

thathowever

xaltedly

ndowed

with

reason

man

maybe

he s yetdriven

t

times

with

sexual desire.

So Aristotle

lmost

forces

us

to ask

whether hewhole

man

s thus

learly

ndi-

catedcorresponds

ith his own more

ully

elaborated

onception

f man.

Another,

andfor hisdiscussion,more elevantway

of

asking

the

same question

s: Is

Aris-

totle's

conception

f

man as

unmistakably

indicated

n

his zoological

works the

De

Generatoine

nd

the

De Anima

articularly)

the

same,fundamentally,

s that

presented

in

his

philosophical

works

(the

Ethics

and the Metaphysics articularly)?

Fi-

nally,

and still more

o the

point,

we

may

ask thequestion hus: Is Aristotle's erm

entelecheia

pplicable

o

man

as his

concep-

tion

of

man

tands

n

its most

philosophi-

cal

(metaphysical?)

orm?

Categorical

nswers o

the

ast two

forms

of the question I believe must be:

(i)

Aristotle's onception f mancontained n

his traditionally hilosophical works is

irreconcilablen several ways with that

contained n his traditionally iological

works; z)Not only s his concept f "Com-

plete reality"

entelecheia)

napplicable o

his philosophical metaphysical) oncep-

tion of man, but he himself robably elt

this

as he seems not to have applied the

term t certain rucialpoints n his "first

philosophy" of man.

A

justificationf possible of these an-

swers s manifestlyuefromme The prob-

lem is necessarilynvolved in Aristotle's

general heory

f

the psyche,

r soul.

So

well known s his

teaching oncerninghe

separateness r at least separableness f

reason,

r

the

rational

art

f

he oul, rom

the body that extensive reatment f the

subjectmay be disposed

of

verybriefly.

The followingmaybe considered o pre-

sent hekernel fhisteaching n thisgreat

subject:

Turning

ow to the

part

of the soul with

which

the

soul

knows

nd

thinks

whether

his

s

separable

from thers

n

definitionnly, r spatially

s

well)

we

have

to

inquire I)

what differentiateshis

part,

nd

(2.)

how

thinking

an

take

place.

If

thinking

s

like perceiving,

t must

be

either

process

n

which the soul

is acted

upon by

what

is

capable

of

being hought,

r

a

process

ifferentrom

butanalogous othat. Thethinking art fthe oul

must herefore'be,

hile

mpassible, apable

ofreceiv-

ing

the

form f an

object;

hat

s,

must

e

potentially

identical

n

character

with its

object

without

being

the

object.

Mind must

be

related

o what

is think-

able,

as

sense

s

to

what

s

sensible.

Therefore,

ince

verything

s a

possibleobject

of

thought,

mind

n

order,

s

Anaxagoras ays,

o domi-

nate, hat s,

to

know,

must

e pure

rom

ll

mixture;

for he

co-presence

f what

is

alien

to its nature

s

a

hindrancend

a

block:

it follows

hat t

too,

ike the

sensitive art, an haveno nature f its own, other

than

thatof

having

certain

apacity.

Thus

that n

the

soul which

s

called

mind

by

mind mean

hat

whereby

he

soul thinks

and

judges) is,

before

t

thinks,

ot

actually ny

real

thing.

For this

reason

it cannot

easonably

e

regarded

s

blended

with

the



ARISTOTLE

AND

ENTELECHEIA

I7

body:

if

so,

it

would

acquire

some

quality,

e.g.,

warmth r cold, or evenhave an organ ike the sensi-

tive faculty: s it is, it has none. It was

a good idea

to call the soul "the place of forms," houghI)

this

description olds only forthe intellective oul, and

(X) even his s theforms nlypotentially,

ot ctually

(De

Anima z9a io-08,

SmithTrans.).

Probablyno readerwill needreminding

that modernknowledgeof the

functions

of

the

brain leaves the statement hat

thinking as no organwithouta traceof

fact to rest on. Nor will manyreaders

fail to

recognize

n

the statement

bout

the

soul as

the "place

of

forms"one

in-

stanceof Aristotle's eeming dherenceo

Plato's doctrine f Ideas.

Still more

pointed bout

reason's

nde-

pendence

s: "While the

faculty

f

sensa-

tion is

dependent pon the body,

mind s

separableromt."

(42

9b

4)

As a

revealer f

what

Aristotleknew nd

what he

did not know

about

the

psychobiology

f

man,

nd

of his

reasoning

on

the

subject,these

are

crucial

passages. The striking eficiencyn his knowledge

was of

course

natomical nd

physiological:

He knew

nothing

of the fact that

brain

is

indispensable

o

thought.

One

might

make

considerable

f the

fact

that

n

his

comparison

f

perceiving

with thinking

Aristotle aries

his

language omewhat.

While sen-

sation

s

"dependent"

n the

body,

mind s

"separ-

able"

from

t.

Does

this

uggest

hat after

ll he had

some

misgivingsbout

he

omplete

ackof

dependence

of

thinking

n the

body? May

he

not

have surmised

that s to its

origin

mindhas somekindof

dependence

on thebodywhile n tsfunctional aturityt maynot

be

thus

dependent?Might

notthemind's

ependence

on the

body be something

ike an

apple's dependence

on

the

tree-dependent

or

origin but

not

for

ater

existence

nd function? With all Aristotle

knew

about

the

generation

nd nutrition f animals and

other

iving hings

t

seems

ncredible

hat he should

not have had some qualms about

the

eparableness

f

reason rom he body. So extensivelynd

nsistently

does

he

present

is

conception f henutritivend en-

sitive

parts

f the

soul

that assume

my

readers

uffi-

ciently cquaintedwiththisphaseofthe matter o

obviate

he need

of

going

nto

t

further.

t will

be

enough, hope,

to

assert

nd

nothingmore,

hat

he

never

ven suggests

hat

these

wo

parts

of the -.oul

are

eparable

rom he

body.

The

rational,

he

th nk-

ing,part nlybe conceived

o

be separable.

But

h

w

could he make his allywith what

he

knew nd

tells

us so distinctly as quoted above) about the

way

reason nd appetencyre tied up together?

But what specially concerns s is the

bearingofAristotle'sbelief n the separ-

ableness f mind rom odyon his concep-

tion of

entelecheia.

an we get any light

on this matter rom tudying he passages

on

separableness quoted above? They

contain hreepoints hat are illuminating

inthisway.

The firsts containedn the nquiry bout

the separableness f the soul. If we turn

from he Smith translation used in our

quotation)to the translation sed byRoss

in

his Selections, e find differencehat

appears significant o a morphological

biologist.

The

wording

n

the

Ross

ver-

sion is: "With regard o the part of the

soul by which t knows and thinks,whe-

therthis

be separable

or

not separable

n

spatial magnitude ut only n definition,"

etc. The point at issue is betweenthe

"'spatially as well" of the separableness

in

the Smithtranslation nd the "spatial

magnitude" f he eparablenessntheRoss

translation. Megethoss the term

n

the

original which

is

rendered

"spatially"

in

the Smith version,

nd

"spatial mag-

nitude" in the Ross version. Now

since

megethos

eans

bulk

or

size,

and

hence

implies hape, t

is

considerably

more

pos-

itive s tocorporealityhan s "spatially."

This

distinction

s

particularlyignificant

because

space

has no

objectivereality

or

extreme dealistic

philosophers,

nd

ap-

pears

o

be

in

somewhat

he

same

predica-

ment

at

the

hands of some

present-day

mathematical hysicists.Viewed

in

this

light the query

is

pertinent:

Was

not

Aristotle virtually asking

whether

the

thinkingpart of the soul togetherith

partof

the

body

s

separable

from

he

rest

of the

body?

This

would seem

n

accord

with his usual naturalistic

ttitude.

So

no

wonder the

man was

puzzled-as

we



THE

QUARTERLY

REVIEW

OF BIOLOGY

know

he was

frompassages

like

this:

"Hence

arisesa question

of the

greatest

difficulty,hich

we must strive

o

solve

to the best

of our

abilityand as

far as

possible.

Whenand

how andwhence s

a

share

n

reason

cquired y

those

nimals

that participate

n this

principle?"

Dc.

Gen. 36b

5).

The second

pointto

be noticed ouches

thequestion

rom different

ngle.

Fol-

lowingthe

statement

bout

the necessity

forthe

mind'spurity

from dmixture

e

read:

". . . .

it [mind]

too, like the

sen-

sitivepart, anhaveno nature f ts own,

other

than

that of

having

a certain

ca-

pacity.

That

the

thinking

and the sensitive

parts

of

the

soul

can "have

no

nature"

oftheir

wn other

han

certain

apacity,

or

potentiality,

s

surely

t odds with

our

modern

nowledge

fcapacity,

s we have

seen

n

previous

iscussions.

Nothing

has

justcapacity lone. It is besides nentity

in

its own

self.

Explosives,

or

nstance,

and

seeds,

have

natures

f their

own

in

addition

to their

capacities

as

explosives

and

as

producers

f

full-fledged

lants.

So

thismakes

t

impossible

o

accept

the

statement

s

a valid

argument.

But the

weightier

reason

for

calling

attention

o the

point

here s

that

t is not

fully

onsistent

ith Aristotle's

wn

gen-

eral

attitude

oward

nature,

orwith some

of

his

specific

tatements.

Thus his

re-

peatedly

expressed

view

that

a

thing's

nature onsists

n

its

matter,

r substance,

and its

form,

r final

actualization,

nd

also

n

the

movementsrchanges

y

which

it passes

from ne

to theother,

s entirely

consistentwith our

present

knowledge,

but not with such a view as that here

expressed.

Take for

instance

his final,

summed-uptatement

boutnature

n the

chapter

devoted

to that subject

in the

lexical book of

the

Metaphysics:

From what has been

said, then,

t is

plain

that

nature n the primary nd

strict ense

s the essence

of

things

which

have

n

themselves,s such,

a source

of movement; or he

matter

s

called

the

nature

e-

cause t is qualified o receive his, nd processes fbe-

coming nd growing re called naturebecause they

are movements roceeding rom

his.

And nature n

this

sense s the sourceof

the movement f

natural

objects,being present

n them

omehow,

ither

po-

tentially r actually.

(ioi5a

io-i5,

Ross trans.).

As

a

general

tatementhis would

seem

to cover

satisfactorily resent-day

nfor-

mationconcerninghe

brain

as an

organ

of

thought.

The "somehow, either potentiallyor

actually" of the fact hatthought

s

pres-

ent as a "natural

object"

in

the brain

would

probablybe

satisfactory

s a

gen-

eral statement o modern

eurologists.

The third point

which we notice

in-

volves

directly

he

question boutthebear-

ing of the statements nderexamination

on the

problem f

entelecheia.

The essence

of the point is in the statementsup-

posedly eferringoPlato) aboutthe oul's

being

"the

place

of forms."

Directly

following this, Aristotle adds his own

limitationupon it:

"though

i)

this de-

scription

holds

only of the intellective

soul,

and

(z) even

this is

the

forms

nly

potentially, ot

actually." The crux of

the matter

s

that

entelecheia

s

the term

rendered actually"

in

the translation.

The original phrase is worth quoting:

ovUrE

WEXEXE'cLa

LXXa

5vvVAcuELa EL31f. "Not

entelchebia,

owever,but dynamis s [the

form

or

idea]."

That

is to

say, the

intellective soul

being unmixed with

body

does

not

come

under the

concept

of

entelecheia

because

entelecheia

ncludes

both

potentialitydynamis)

and

actuality

(energeia).

In

other

words on the basis

of what we are here given, it appears

that Aristotle

ecognized hat n conceiv-

ing

the intellective

art of the soul as

separable

rom he

body, he

was

placing

it outsidehis

concept

of entelecheia.




I9

Thus we have at the highest evel of

man's

naturewhat

is

seemingly

nother

piece of evidence hat

in

Aristotle's eal

purpose

entelecheia

as

fundamentally

descriptiveerm orhis natural cience nd

hence was excluded from the highest

flights, o to speak, of his "first hiloso-

phy." And arewe not justifiedn

con-

cluding hat the crucial

statements nder

examination ontain

rreconcilable

f

not

contradictory iews and

that

these are

largely if not wholly traceableto the

author's complete gnorance f

the func-

tions of the brain and nervoussystem?

While such

a

conclusiondoes not con-

stitute final proof that had Aristotle

known the function f the brain,of the

cerebral ortex especially,he

would not

have believed n the

separableness f the

intellective art of the soul, t does show

that

he had advanced so far

toward

a

wholeness,

r

unified heory f

man

that

he could not departfromhis generaldi

rection without contradictinghimself.

This

referenceo the idea that

entelecheia

would

be applicable

o man n

the

whole

gamut of his individual ife onlyby in-

cluding

its

potentialities

s well

as

its

actualities which, note, it does

not in-

clude

according

to the statement

nder

examination),

s

a

point

at

which

we

may onvenientlyesume

he

examination

of Aristotle's teaching concerningthe

appetative faculty of the soul as this

manifests tself in

the sexual

mode

of

reproduction.This resumption

s neces-

saryto enable us to

see still

further hat

appears o be implied oncerning

human

being's

wholeness

n

his

teaching

about

sexual

pleasure.

RELATION

BETWEEN

PLEASURE

AND

SENSA-

TION-ANCIENT

AND

MODERN

VIEWS

In

resuming

his

examinationwe note

first

Aristotle's

conception

of

pleasure.

The phase of the conception hat is

spe-

cially relevant

to the

point

in

hand is

stated,

more

or less clearly

n

various on-

nections, erhaps owheremore o than

n

thefollowing: Wherethere s

sensation,

there s also pleasure nd pain, and, where

these, ecessarily

lso

desire" Dc An.4I3b

2-o.

mith rans.). The

main

pointhere s

that

sensation s always accompaniedby

pleasure r pain. And this

clearlymeans

(fromwhat we have already earned) hat

the

ensitive oul at least is alwaysexperi-

encingpleasureor pain. Satisfaction r

dissatisfaction ould probably omenearer

to Aristotle'smeaning.What mmediately

follows

the passage just quoted,

though

bearing nly ndirectly

n the main

point,

is important: We have no evidence as

yet about mindor the power to

think; t

seems

o be

a

widely

different

ind

of soul,

differing

s

what is eternal romwhat is

perishable; t alone

s

capableof

existencc

in

solation rom ll other sychic

owers.

For us the most significanthing about

this

passage

is

the unmistakable

vidence

it

furnishes f Aristotle's

ncertaintys

to whether he intellective

part

of the

soul is or is

not

linked with

the other

parts-the nutritive, ensitive, nd

loco-

motive

parts.

In

the

light

of what

the

anatomy,

is-

tology,

and

physiology

f

the

neuromus-

cular

system

nd

especially

f the

cerebral

cortex,have taughtus, Aristotle'sunccr-

tainty bout

the

connection f

the

"mind

or

power

o

think,"

with

ensations

only

of

antiquarian

nterest.

But

what

about the

relation f sensation

to

pleasure

nd

pain?

Do we know for

certainty

hat "where there

s

sensation

there is also

pleasure

and

pain?"

Still

more,

do

we

know that

where there s

pleasureor pain there s also sensation?

I fail

to

find nything

n

any

of the

works hat seems

o

be

an

effortt

a

direct

answer o these

questions.

But it matters

little whether Aristotlemadc

such

an



t0

THE

QUARTERLY

REVIEW

OF BIOLOGY

effort r

not,

for

we are sure

he

could

not have made much real headway

n

it.

The whole factual

realm

most directly

involved

s thatof heminute

tructure

nd

function f

the sensory

nd motornerve

terminals,

he

details of

stimulus nd re-

sponse,

and so on.

But

I

believethat

f

we study

his

utter-

ances about pleasure

n

the various

works,

particularly he long discussionof

it

in

the

Nicomachean

thics, eginning

he

tudy

with what

he gives

in the

History f

Animals,we may recognize hat he

laid

the foundation or conception fpleasure

upon which a sound modern onception

can

be erected.

The

passage

in

the

History

specially

referredo

is:

The life

f

animals, hen,maybe

divided nto

two

acts-procreation

nd

feeding;

or n

these

wo acts

ll

their nterests nd life concentrate. Their food

de-

pends chiefly n

the

substances f

which

they

are

severally onstituted;or

he

ource f their rowth

n

all cases

will

be

this

substance.

And

whatsoever

s

in conformity ithnature s pleasant, nd all animals

pursue leasure

n

keeping

with

heir ature. 589a 5,

Thompson rans.).

A

student pproachingAristotle

n

the

moreusual

way, namely, rom he side

of

formal

philosophy, s likely to question

whether

n

such

a

statement

he author

really ncludesman with animals. Does

he

in

very

ruth

mean,for nstance, hat

all man's "interests nd life concentrate"

on

"procreation

nd

feeding?"

We

know well, from he Ethics artic

larly, hatAristotlewas about s far s any

philosopher r religionist, r anyhumanist

of

whatever

chool ever was, fromview-

ing man as a "beast of the field" n the

degradative ense often ttached to that

phrase. But from the context of this

passage, it is impossible o avoid (if we

wanted

o) recognizing hatmanwas here

included n Aristotle's thinking s defi-

nitely and certainly s was any other

animal.

The

passage

s in

the

eighth ook

of the History,

which

may,

I

think, be

fairly

regarded

as near the

high-water

mark

of Aristotle's

writing

on natural

history.

For

nstance,

is

statement

bout

nature'sproceeding little by littlefrom

things

ifeless

to animal

life,"

that has

becomefamous

from

being nterpreted

s

adumbrativeof the modern

theory of

Evolution,

occurs n

this book. But the

opening entence

f the

real

discussion

f

the

book

tells

us in

so

many

wordswhere

the writer tands

n

the treatment.

In the

great

majority

f

animals here

re traces f

psychical ualitiesor attitudes,whichqualitiesare

more

markedly ifferentiated

n

the

case of

human

beings.

For

just

as we

pointed

out

resemblances

in the

physical

rgans,

o

in

a

number

f

animalswe

observe gentleness

r

fierceness,

mildnessor cross

temper,

ourage

or

timidity,

ear r

confidence,igh

spirit or

low cunning, nd,

with

regard

o

intelli-

gence, something

quivalent

to

sagacity.

Some

of

these

qualities

n

man,

as

compared

with the

corre-

sponding

ualities

n

animals,differ

nly quantita-

tively:

that

s to

say,

a

man

has

more r less of this

quality, nd ananimalhasmore r essof ome ther;

other

ualities

n

man

are

represented y

analogous

and not identical

qualities:

for

nstance, ust as

in

man we find

knowledge,

wisdom,

and

sagacity, o

in

certain

nimals

there

exists

ome

other natural

potentiality

kin

to

these.

(Historia,

88a

o-0x5.)

The

unqualified animalness

of

man,

though

f

a

kindthat s

enormously igh,

relatively,

n

Aristotle's

thinking, es-

pecially when

he

was

at

his best as a

naturalist, oesnot,we hope,needfurther

illustration.

Now

can there

be

any

other

nterpreta-

tion

of the

sentences uoted

than that

Aristotle

onceivedpleasureto

go along

with

sensation to

the

very

root-tips

f

animal

ifeand

so

of

the ifeof

ndividual

man?

What

else can

be madeof

the state-

ment that all

animals seek

pleasure

"in

keeping with their nature?" The real

question

here

s

as

to the

lower

limit

of

sensation.

So far as

Aristotle'smeans

of

testing

ould

go,

he was

probablyustified

in

considering lants

devoid ofsensation.



ARISTOTLE

AND

ENTELECHEIA

In

otherwords he was probably ustified

in considering ensation

strictly nimal

attribute.

Essentially he same

idea is variously

expressed y Aristotle.Thus: "Each kind

of

being, again, seems to have its proper

pleasure, s it has its

properfunction,-

viz., the pleasurewhich

accompanies he

exercise f its faculties

r the realization

of ts

nature." (Nicom. th.Book X, 5, 8.

Peters

rans.)

This

identificationf pleasurewiththefundamen-

tal nature

f ivingbeings s so important or wo hy-

potheses ambeing edto, that we must onsider ts

historic ndfactual

ackgrounds little arther. uch

considerations

needed

n

our

day especially, erhaps,

because

of

the wide

currency

f'quite

differentnter-

pretations nd valuations f

pleasure.

That

Theophrastus, pupil

and

disciple f Aristo-

tle, shouldhave had a similar

iew of pleasure s not

surprising. "For

Theophrastus,"we read, pleasure

is the

normal ccompanimentf

what s n accordwith

nature. As

arule, herefore,e

take lesaurenthings,

since

the

common ourse fourfunctionss nevitably

'natural' and not antagonistic o nature" Stratton,

G.M.,

I9I7, p.48).

And ne

passage romTheophras-

tus

himselfs much o thepoint

because t is

in

refuta-

tionof a

view of Anaxagoraswhich

fits

well with

a

brand

of

cynical philosophy uite prevalent

n

our

era.

"But

as

for the

thesis,"

says Theophrastus,

"that sense

perception

s

universally onjoinedwith

pain,

this

finds o

warrant

n

experience,

nasmuch

as

some

objects

re

actuallyperceived

with

pleasure,

and most f

them

t

least without

ain." (Stratton,

p.

93).

Those of our

contemporaries

ho

have

been

educatednto spiritual ondition uchthat nwhat-

ever

hey

do

toward

njoying

hemselves

hey ppear

to

get

more

misery

han

pleasure

rom

t,

will

not of

course

e impressed y either he

conception

f

pleas-

ure

hat

omes o us

from ristotle

ndTheophrastus,

nor

by

like

conception

rommodern

ources.

It

is, however, mportant o note

that manyper-

sons of

this

veryday

whose voices can

hardlybe ig-

nored,

ave

reached

uite

imilar

onceptions.

A

few

of

he

many

vailable

references

ust

uffice.

Simply

to

live,

move and

breathe, hould

be

a

delight."

This

statementyWilliamJames,

s

entitled o

the

more

respect, submit,

rom

eing quoted

with

ap-

proval by

a

foremost hysician nd contemporary

worker n

public health

Winslow, C. E. A., I924,

p.

2.I4)-

The

only

ther tatements

give pace

o arechosen

for

the

trustworthinessf the

authority, nd,

more

especially,

or he

pproach as

it seems o

me) of

the

views

expressed o the

hypothesis o

which we are

coming.

We

read:

"Pleasantnessmight epresent general

organic

tate, nd

unpleasantness he

contrary tate,

each

state

being n

nternal odily

esponse o

pleasant

or

unpleasant

timuli, nd

making

tself

felt s an

unanalyzable

ompound f

vague

nternalensations.

Again:

"Pleasantness nd

unpleasantness

re much

less

definitely

ocalized [than

sensationsfrom

the

special

senses];

hey eem o be

in us'

without

being

in

any special part

of us."

(Woodworth,

9ZI,

pp.

I75

and

74.)

What,we

must ow

ask,

do

these iverse

eferences

to

sensation nd

what s

pleasant r

unpleasant

oint

toward? Theliterallymmeasurablextent o which

personal

experience nd

common

observation

find

sensation,

eeling,

motion, assion

nd the

rest, e-

pendent n

stimulations,

xternal nd

nternal,

nevit-

ably

uggests

hat n

eeking n answer

o

the

uestion,

the

quarter o be

turnedoward

irst

houldbe that

of

the

most

earching

nvestigation

etmade, n the

de-

pendence f

the

phenomena f

living bodies

on the

responsivenessf

the

bodies to

stimulations

s just

indicated. And

thuswe

runhead-on

nto one of

the

most

recondite

nd also

far-reaching

ivisions

of

psychobiology. Itwouldbe futile o attempt n ex-

haustive

xploration f

hisrealmhere.

But

t

would

be

equally

futile o

try

o

understand

he

ssues

most

fundamentallynvolved without

having got

a firm

hold

on the main

results

f researches

n

the

realm.

So

we

mustdo our

best under he

circumstanceso-

ward such

a

hold.

Conformably ith the historic iathcsis f our en-

terprisewe

may

first otice

Aristotle'svery

wrong

supposition

hat

plants re devoidof

ensation.

The

question

of whether

he did or did not

produce

a

treatise n plants nd thefurtheruestion fwhether,

if

he

did, he

could have still

held

to his

error

n this

matter,

t

is useless

o

speculate

on.

For

the

error

he

certainlymade

and it

appears o have

influenced,

willy-nilly,

is

whole

theory

f

he ctivities f

iving

beings.

Possibly,

however,

he was not

quite

so

wrong

s

to

facts or

unjustifiable

s to

theory s

he

seems.

For

in

one

passage at least he

goes

some

distance

oward

recognizing

he ruth. After

eferringo

the

fact hat

various

mechanismsmay

be injured

r

destroyed y

being

riven oo hard

n

the

performance

f their or-

mal

function,

e

tells

us:

"This

explains

also

why

plants

annot

erceive,

n

spite

of

their

having por-

tion

of

soul

in

them

nd

obviously

being

ffected

y

tangible objects

themselves; or

undoubtedly

heir

temperaturean

be

lowered

r

raised."

(De

An.

42-4a



11

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW OF

BIOLOGY

30

Smith

rans.)

It has

been

suggested

hat

in the

distinction

eremade between

perceiving nd being

affected, ristotlewas

aiming t an old and fanciful

notion bout

feeling f oy

and sadness xperiencedy

plants.

The

merest

eferenceo

what

everybody

nows

about

heMimosas nd

other

sensitive lants;"about

insect

atching nd

devouring lants; and about the

action

f

wining

nd

tendril

linging

lants,

will suf-

fice

s

familiar

vidence f

Aristotle's

eneralwrong-

ness

n this

matter.

Turning

o the ess familiar

ata,

a

summarytate-

mentmaybe made

s

follows:

Someofthe

most xact

and

lluminating

esearchesf he

modern

eriod

nto

the

"irritability,"

he

"excitability," the

"stimul-

ability" various

erms

meaning

much

he

ame

hing)

of ivingorganisms, avebeen conducted n plants,

nearly

he

wholerange

f he

plantworldhavingbeen

requisitioned

or

nvestigativematerials.

As a

hint

at

what

recent

history resents

n

this

realm,

he work of the

botanist

Pfeffer

ay be men-

tioned.

The choice

falls

here

argelybecause

this

investigator'shandbook

is

widely

and

favorably

known.

In

an

nteresting

ection fthe

book, entitled na-

ture f

rritability,"

e read:

"until

recently he-part

played by

stimuli

n

all vital

phenomena as

been

overlooked."Pfeffer,

900,

p.

I3.)

Thedate

i88o)

of the

first

erman

dition

f this

work

ndicates he

extreme

ecency

f scientific

nowledge

n

this

field.

As the

quotation

clearly mplies,

when

irritability

at

ts

base

evel s under

onsideration,

here s no fun-

damentaldistinction

etween

plants

and

animals.

And since

plants

have

no

sense

rgans

s this

expres-

sion

s

usuallyunderstood,

heir

ensitivity

must

de-

pend

on a

very eneral

roperty

f

iving

eings.

So

it

happens

hat

n

the

wricings

f

the

periodof

Pfeffer

and a little

arlier,

ne

constantly inds tatements

o

the ffecthat ensitivity,rresponsivenesso stimuli,

is a

property

ommon o all

"living

matter"

r

proto-

plasm.

More

recentlyesults

oming

from

ncreas-

ingly

refined

nvestigation,

he

conception

f sen-

sitivity

s a

general

property

f

"living

matter"

has had to

be

modified

o

the

extent

of recog-

nizing

that

this

generalproperty elongs

to

living

matter

only

as such

matteroccurs

in

organized,

living bodies.

OtherWise

xpressed,

the

concepts

of

both

aliveness

nd

sensitivity

eem

to

be insep-

arable

from he

concepts

f

body

and

organization.

The concept' f "living matter," or "protoplasm"

as

a

universal,

undifferentiated,

norganized,

n-

corporealized

omething

or other now stands in

opposition

to

an

enormousmass of

observational

knowledge,

nd

is

unsupported

y

a

scintilla

of

such

knowledge.

The

great science

of living cells,

cytology,

s

manifestlypposed

to the concept.

But

cells re

byno

means hebottom ink, o

to say, fthe

chain of

observational ata opposed to

the concept.

In truth,

ytological

nowledge s now

being devel-

oped, sconcernedargelywith host fbodies fvari-

ous sizes

nd shapes

nddegrees f

permanence ithin

cells.

Althoughmany,

probablymost, of

these are

not alive

in the full ense, heir

undoubted ontribu-

tion n one

way or

another o the vital

activities f

the

cells s

entirely t one with the

conception f or-

ganized

corporealitys a sinequa

non

to

aliveness.

"Living

matter" as, nboth

fact nd

ogic,about he

same

status hat

the term humanity"

has. There

is

no

more

ustification

n

imagining

living matter"

as

sometingpart

rom

nd

antecedento

living odies

than

there s in

imagining

humanity" s something

apartfrom nd antecedento, human eings.

"Protoplasmic ystems"

s

a term

now much

used

by

nvestigators

ccupied hiefly

ith the

functional,

or

physiologicalideofvital phenomena

tthese oun-

dational evels.

What the parts re and

that the or-

ganization

s,

of these

deep-level

odies,though

of

great

nterest,

specially o experimental

orkers, an

be

merely

ouched

here.

Reference

must

e

made

to

the

great

role the surfaces f the

bodies play in the

phenomena resented.

"Surface ayers"

and "limit-

ing

membranes"

re

basic

n

the

erminology

fknowl-

edgehere. Now thischaracter f thesebodies ends

itselfwell

to the

seeming ecessity

f

extending

ur

conception

f

ensitivity

rom

urcommon

xperience

as

bodies

to these

deep-level odies.

And we must

noticethat

Aristotle,

tarting

rom

this amecommon

xperience

nd

applying

o it

prin-

ciples

of

reasoning

he

himself

had

worked

out,

reached

conclusions hat

are

in

striking eneral c-

cord

with the

results

f

late

experimental

esearch.

Thus on

the

problem

f

a

livingbody

and

the matter

of

which

t

is

composed,

we read: "Now there s one

class ofexistent hingswhichwe call substanceou-

sian],

ncluding

nder

he term, irstly,

atter

bylen],

which n

itself s

not thisor

that;

secondly, hape

or

form,

n

virtue

f

which

he erm

his r that s

at once

applied;

thirdly,

he whole made

up

of matter

nd

form."

(Dc

An.

4IIa

2.

Hicks

trans.).

Highly

m-

portant

s

it

that

"shape

or form"here s the

crass

thing

f

modern

morphology. Morphen

ai

idos

s

the

original.

That which s

observed

s well as

the

dea

of

t is

what

we

have

to do with. When

we reflect

that in

the

discussion f which this

paragraph

s

a

partAristotles dealingwiththeproblemftherela-

tion f

he

oul

to the

body; nd note hat he

question

ofthe

"sensitive nd

appetitive

aculties"was

always

conspicuously

n

his

thought,

we

may

well

be

im-

pressed y the

closenessof

his

approach,

o far as

theory

s

concerned,

o the

modern

osition,



ARISTOTLE

AND ENTELECHEIA

23

There s now an enormousmass of evi-

dence

n

courton the r6le of stimuli, x-

citors, activators in vital phenomena.

This evidencemakes t look as thoughwe

shall have to recognize that such phe-

nomena re as dependent n externalityor

excitation o action s they refor uilding

materials, nd energy-yielding aterials

for

ction. But, of course, externality"

as thusused would include ll such facts

as

that nypart fourbodies, urkidneys,

or gonads,or blood corpuscles, r cells

generally, re external o all otherparts.

The conceptionof vital spontaneity, r

automisity

n

a strict ense,

n

the sense,

that s, of abilityof a living body of any

kindor grade ither o begin ts acts or to

modify hem, ust by its own exclusive

self, ppears o be on the verge f elimina-

tion

from

ound

biology.

The

following

seems fairepitomeof conclusions nder

this

head:

"As thefacts tand tpresenthere sno reason or

assuming

the occurrence

f

self-excitation.

pon-

taneity

n

a

strict

ense s

far

rom

eing

demonstrated

fact.

One

cell

region,

ell

or

cell

groupmay

f course

excite

nother, ut

the

original

ource

of excitation

and of

the

nitiating nergy

s

apparentlylways

out-

side the

region,

ell

or cell

group

xcited."

(Child,

192.4,

p.

i86.)

What

therelation

f

non-spontaneity

s here

ndi-

cated

maybe

to the

pontaneous,

r

autonomic

tomic

activity

ow

receiving

much ttention

y physicists,

isan mportantut eemingly very ifficultuestion.

The surmise

hat

the doctrine f electronic

ndeter-

minism

endsphysical upport

o

the

doctrine

f "free

will"

is easy to

make,

nd seems

ongenial

o

certain

types

f

feeling

nd

thinking.

And

there

may

well

be

a

connection f

some

recondite

ind

between

he

two.

If

men

ould discover cientific

acking

for

n

hypothesishar hey re

free

o act

n

some

uch

way

as radio-active

ubstances re,

he

discovery

ould be

significant

n

severalways.

But

t

s important ot

to

forget

hat he firstmen-

tioned doctrine s strictlyatomistic-mathematical

while

the

econd

s far rom hat. The "free

will"

is

crasslymolar,.e., corporeal,

o far s all

experience

in

exercising

t

goes.

But

still

more

mportant

s it

not

to forget

hat

oth

doctrinesre tems

n,

are

prod-

ucts

of, the knowledge-getting

ctivities

f human

beings.

The doctrine f atomic indeterminism

s

utterly ependent

n facts hat re molaror corporeal.

These facts re,

forone thing, he utterdependence

of human bserving,

nowing nd thinking

n being

humanly live; and furtherhe utterdependence f

being

live on

breathing,

ating

nd

the

rest. Now

these

facts

re

so familiar s to tend to become ust

taken or ranted.

And things usttaken

forgranted

are, f highly omplex, lways iable to

be treated s

though omeof their lementsust do

not exist.

Lillie has recently ublished omehighly

nLerest-

ing discussionsn this general ield pproached

rom

the ideofmodern

hysiologyLillie,

I93I

and

932).

PLEASURE-PAIN IN RELATION

TO THE

WHOLE-AND-ITS-PARTS

What,now,

is the

bearing

f all this on

the problem

of pleasure? My answer s

the first f the two hypotheses

orecast

several pages back.

Our

experiences

hich

we

haracteriZe

s

pleasant, greeable,

atisfy-

ing, nd

to

which egive uch ames

s pleas-

ure,

happiness,

oy, are rootedinally

n our

sensitivity

s

bodies

hat are

alive. Their

foundationsre aid at the moment f our

conception,

re much advancedby being

born,

nd are never

ntirelybsent

s

long

as we

live. This

deep-level

ruth

etspar-

tial recognition

n

the familiar tatement,

"Self-preservation

s

the firstaw of ife."

From he exercise y every

ivingbody of

its

ability

to maintain

tself

we get such

concepts

nd

sayings

s that t is

"good

to

to

be

alive." Of prime mportances the

recognition fthat double dependencen

externalityinpart

he external

orld" of

common

xperience)

which

our

discussion

focused ttention

pon.

Each

livingbody

depends

n

what is

external o

it

for ts

building

and

energy-yielding

aterials

(air, food,water),

and also

for

timulation

to all its activities.

A

body

s

alive

n

and

of

tsability

o usefor ts own existence

relatively ewthings xternal o it, and to

respondo,

nd

sense, literally

ncountable

number

f thingsexternal o

it. For a

body

to

exercise hese

abilites

s to

fulfil,

or

to

satisfy,

ts nature.

These are the



24 THE QUARTERLY

REVIEW OF BIOLOGY

verybottom cts by which

a

living body

"makes good."

This is as fundamentally

truefor hemeanestweed-seed

hat

n

re-

sponse o

moisture

nd warmth

ushes ts

sprout through he hard ground,as for

the greatest

human

genius

that

responds

to

conditions

f

his time nd

surroundings

and to his own

internal urge." Sensi-

tivity nd responsivenesss here

touched

upon, are basic to the concept

of life-or-

death needs

and

activities,

nd life-fulfill-

ingneeds nd ctivities uggested

lsewhere

(Ritter ndBailey,

9Z7, pp.

2.68

nd

95).

This

tracing

f the

rootsof

goodness,

the

gu-d

life,"the

it is

goodto be alive," to

their ips n tht

verydeepest evel

of aliveness f animatebodies is

likely o shockthose

who still clingto the teachings

of traditional

hilosophy

nd ethicson

this

matter.

For

our nterpretation

ivesno quarter o the dea

of

an

ultimate,

ncarnate ood,

that

lways,

ince lato,

has figuredn one

form r

another

n the theories

f

manydelvers nto

the problems f human ife. That

is good according

o this nterpretation,

hich s in-

trinsic

nd

ssential

o thevery ature f the ivingbe-

ing nd s no outsider,r lien, ven hough tsdepend-

ence on externality

s

irremovable. Goodness

does

not

ust

ome, omehow,

rom ome magined

where,

to

occupy portion

the spiritual rmental ortion)

of

that

relatively

mall

group

f

iving beings

alled

human y us of the

western orld. "Good"

though

as

deeply eal

as

life

tself,

s not of extra- nd supra-

mundane rigin n

an imaginary ivinity.

Rather,

it is

basic quality,

r

sense,

nherent

n,

and

essential

to,

the

tate

f

aliveness.

Divine

goodness

s derived

by

abstraction

rom

t;

not t from

ivinity.

(This is no treatise n theproblem f Good and

Evil. Since,

however,we are ed by thenature f

this

enterprise

o touch he

"good" aspect

f the

problem,

I

can not consistentlyeave the other,

the

"evil,"

aspectwholly

untouched.

If

my nterpretation

f "good" is right,

t seems b-

vious

hat

"evil"

is

not

an antithesisf t

n

the ense

that,

for

nstance,

white

s

the antithesis

f

black,

or

warm fcold. The existence f "good"

is notcondi-

tioned

n

the

existence f "evil" as

its essential

on-

trast.

The antithesis f "good,"

is

"dead,"

dead m-

plying something hat was alive but died. The

"good" of a

living being might, heoretically,

x-

perience

ittle evil or even

none at

all.)

Now

is there

easonable

oubt

that

what

we

have

here

aid is

only

a revision nd extension

n

the

ight

of

present-day

nowledge, f

Aristotle's

where here

is sensation, here

s also pleasure;" f

James'

simply

to

live,

move

and breathe

hould be

a delight;"

nd

Woodworth's

pleasure

s 'in

us'

withoutbeing n

any

specialpart

of

us?"

Fromwhat we

have already

earned f Aristotle's

inability, artly

romack

of factualknowledge,

o

see

how

nutrition,ensation,

nd reason ould

be in-

terdependent

nd inseparable

artsof that particular

complete eality

which

s

a

man, we

readilyforesee

that he would

be unable

to go the

whole way with

modernsn interpreting

he good. It

is, however,

o

the

point

o notice hathe

recognized

oththefallacy

and

the

practical

nadequacy

f

the

"UniversalGood"

as conceived y Plato.

(It

is worth

while,historically,

o recall

that one

of the mostmemorable

f Aristotle's irect

eferences

tohisdisagreementith Plato is in thisvery onnec-

tion.

It

is

here hat he

tells us: "such an

inquiry

s

not a

pleasant

ask

n

view of our friendship

or he

authors

f the doctrine

f

ideas."

But

further:

in

the nterests

f truth,we ought

o sacrifice

venwhat

i, nearest

o

us, specially

s

we call ourselves

hiloso-

piers." (Nich.

Ethics,,

6

Peters

rans.)).

Full

of

positive

nterest

houghAristotle's

iscus-

sion of

the

good,happiness,

nd

therest

s as

it

comes

to uw

n

the

Ethics,

t

would

be

out

of

place

to pursue

it

he,

.

One

minor

oint,

however,

as considerable

bearing nour nterpretation. hat s, thenumerous

passages

hat reveal

his

doubts

bout

the

relation e-

tweenreason

nd

the

various

feelings

nd emotions.

One

llustration

ust

uffice.Although

e ets t

down

positively

nough,

that as

to

man

"mere nutrition

and

growth"

must

be excluded,

lsewhere

we

read:

"Good, then,

s not a term

hat

s

applied

to

all

these

things

like

n

the same ense r

with

reference

o one

common

dea

or

form. But

how thendo these

hings

come

o

be

called

good?

for

hey

o

not

ppear

o have

received

he

samenameby chance

merely."

Then,of

special nterest omesthe answer: "Perhaps t is be-

cause

they

ll

proceed

rom ne

source,

r all conduce

to

one

end." (Ethics , 6).

I

am

quite

ure hat

one

source"

and "one

end"

of

this

conditioned tatement

could

without orced

nterpretation

nclude he

owest

level

sensations

n

the one

direction,

nd the

highest

welfare

f the

organism

n the

other,

of

our nterpreta-

tion.

(I

venture o

remind he reader

n

connection

ith

this

suggestion

f Aristotle's

bout

source

nd

end

relative

o what is good, or

my accounton

earlier

pages of my

own

experiences

n

orange-eating

nd

institution-building.)

Like

in

purport

o the above,but

moredefinites

Aristotle's

ecognition

hat

the

good

for

man must

e

connected

with his

"purpose

in

life,"

as

we say.

"Man's

good,"

says

Aristotlewould

seem o ie nhis



ARISTOTLE

AND

ENTELECHEIA

15

function,

fhe

has one. But can

we

suppose hat

while

a carpenter

nd

a cobbler as

a

function

nd

a business

of

his

own,

man

has no business

ndno

function s-

signcd

im ynature? Nay, urely s his severalmem-

bers, ye ndhand ndfoot, lainly aveeachhis own

function,o we must uppose hatman also has some

functionver nd above all these." (Eth.

,

7,

II.)

The

"function

ver

and above

all these"

s,

as all

familiarwith Aristotle's upreme ppraisal of con-

templationwould foresee, he "life of his [man's]

rationalnature." Whether e was right n this s,

of course,not our concern ere.

This

rather

ong but

far

rom

xhaustive xamina-

tion fAristotle's dmirable ven hough ragmentary

knowledge f thetruth bout sensation, leasure, he

good, and happiness as seemed ndispensable o

the

prosecution f our main purpose n this division of

our

nquiry oncerningntelecheia.

We now return o the reason or his di-

version.

The reason was, it will be re-

called, what we found Aristotle aying

about

sexual

pleasurewhen he was at his

best

s

a

zoologist

but

gnoring

lmost

n-

tirely

when he

was

an

ethicist. And

we

need to recall still more definitely hat

madethis matter eem mportant. It was

his

guess,perhaps

aken rom

ippocrates,

that the intensityf he leasure f oitions

due o

the nvolvementf hewhole rganismn

the ction.

I

wish to

contend

ow that

the

revision

ofthis

guess

n

the

ight

of

modern

nowl-

edge

s

sketched

n

the

oregoing

iscussion

justifies he erectionof the guess into

a

definite ypothesis, r perhapsmoreex-

actly,

definite

heory;

nd

further

hat

f

the

theory

s

true,

his

aspect

of sex con-

stitutes ne

of

the

trongestmanifestations

of the wholeness

n

the

sense of

complete

reality entelecheia)f higher animal or-

ganisms.

For notice the facts

nvolved:

(i) The activity f copulation s linked

with that

of

nutrition,

n

the

two most

basic of all vital phenomena ormanand

the

vast

majority

of

organic species.

Those phenomena re

of

course, he

main-

tenance

f he ndividual

nd of

he

pecies.

(X) The excitation ponwhich he ctiv-

ityprimarily

epends

s the

mostbasic

of

all, namely

that

of physical

contact,

or

touch.

(3)

In accordance

with

theconceptions

of excitationand sensitivity pparently

necessitated

y

modern

physiology,

the

sensation

accompanying

the

activity

reaches

down

to the

same

level of

vital

phenomena

s

do

nutritionnd

metabolism.

In other

words,

it reaches

to every

cell

or part

of a cell

of the

organism

hat

is

truly

alive.

That

is to

say, it

reaches

down

to the

simplest

iving

units

into

which livingbodies areresolvable.

Does itnot

follow,

hen,

hat

f "good"

as

applied

to

living

bodies

means

what

numerous

tudents

avesomewhat

aguely

interpreted

t

to mean,

and

we have

more

definitely

o

interpreted

t,

that

he

Hippo-

cratean-Aristotelian

otion

of the

multi-

plication

of the

"good,"

thepleasurable,

feeling,

withthemultiplication

fthe

body

parts nvolved,would be logicallysound?

But

noticewhat

one

of

the

most

funda-

mental

mprovements

f

his ncient heory

affectedy

modern

esearch,

s essentially.

Aristotle

went

farenough,

we

have seen,

with

such

improvement

o

see that

the

intensity

f the

pleasure

ould

not be due

to

the

coming

of

the

germinal

material

from ll parts

ofthe body.

Butremember

his

substitute-pneuma,

piritus

It seemsto me a fair questionwhether

Aristotle

does not

come

nearer

perhaps

unwittingly)

unitary

heory

f the

soul,

and of

soul and body,

in connection

with

this very

matter f sexual

pleasure

than

n

any

otherwhatever.

The

question

hinges

on

the

role

ascribed

o thespiritus

in

coition

and the

views

previously

no-

ticed

hat "intellect

nous]

s

not

found

o

to cause motionapartfrom ppetency."

Still

more

efinitely

n

thisdirection,

ecall

the recognition

hatconcupiscence,

kind

of

appetency,

may

move

a man

n

opposi-

tion to reason."



THE

QUARTERLY

REVIEW

OF

BIOLOGY

So

we

are

ed

toconclude

hat he

whole-

ness of

an

organism

manifested

n

the

ec-

stacy

of sexual

intercourse

s this

is

ex-

perienced ymanand thehigher nimals

generally,

s

one

of themost

characteristic

and

powetful

tems

n

the

omplete

ealityf

these

rganisms.

he momentarily

om-

plete

monopoly

of consciousness

t the

climax

of

sexualecstacy

hould

probably

beviewed

s the

very

ighest

manifestation

of

the

individual's

conscious

unifiedness

and wholeness.

But it is

important

o

noticethat

the tendency

f

the emotions

to such monopoly s not by any means

restricted

o the

erotic

emotion.

Many

forms f contest,

or nstance,

othphysi-

cal and

mental,maygo

far

n

this

direction.

In all such

cases there

s

ampleevidence

not only

as common

xperience,

ut from

scientific esearch,

f the involvement

f

very

many,

f

notall, parts

f heorganism.

EVERYTHING

WHATEVER

AND THE WHOLE-

AND-ITS-PARTS

Finally

we

mustfacethe

supreme ues-

tion

of

ll:

What

did Aristotle

o

abouthis

conception

f

entelecheia

hen he

viewed

it

in

connection

with his

conception

f

Everything

hat

s or Has

Beenor

Will Be?

For we

may

be sure,

fromwhat

we have

abundantly

earned

bout

theman thathe

was not

of

the

kind

either

o

fail

to

ask

this

question

or

to

do

something

oward

answering

t.

Naive

and

philosophical

naturalism

Ritter

nd Bailey,

927,

p.

7)

were

altogether

oo

closely

ntermingled

in himto permit

im

to overlook

or shy

at the

question.

Almost

hemost

amousfrom

he

tand-

point

of

traditional

hilosophy)

of

Aris-

totle's

works,

the

Metaphysics,

ay

be

said to be devotedprimarilyo the prob-

lem of

man's knowing

the Universe,

or

Cosmos, approached

from

the direction

of

the

Whole-and-its-parts.

But

t

s

obvious

hat "our

usual

method

of investigation"

could

not be followed

here without

far-reachingmodification.

For the"compound

whole" to

be analyzed

into ts "uncompoundedlements"Wel-

don, 91,

p.

z) was

certainly

ot accessible

by

theprinciples

f

knowledge-getting

e

himself had so

largely developed

and

utilized.

The method

ould

be

applied

withconsiderableuccess

n

getting

nowl-

edge

of a State

or a work

of art, s

a poem

(this

article,part

I, QUART.

REV. BOL.,

Vol. 7,

p.

38i),

or

a bedstead

p. 387),or

a

block

of

ce p. 383), or

a bit of ir p.

384).

But when it comesto theuniverse-what is

it compounded

f?

Yet,there

s the un, he

moon,

heplan-

ets, the starry

ostsand

the

arching ky,

no

esstrulyhings

f ense xperience

han

men nd

fishes, he

blue

sea,

and

the

solid

earth. Surely the

heavenly

bodies

are

parts-of

something-no

oubtabout

that.

But of

what? What

is the

whole

now?

Can therebe a whole so big andinclusive

that

there

s

nothing

beyond

t, nothing

leftout of it?

No

one

who

has faced

eriously

he

prob-

lem

of theOne

andthe

Many,

as even

we

moderns re perplexed

by it,

can be

de-

cently

ndifferent

o the magnificent

n-

slaughtupon

it

made

by

the Greeks

nor

unsympathetically

ritical

f theirmeager

success.

The study f what

Aristotle id

on

the

problem

maywell

begin

with

a reference

to

the

view,

now

apparently

cceptedby

nearly

all

students

of the

Aristotelian

works,

that the

Metaphysics,

he work

in

which the

deepest

meaning

f

existence

s

treated,

was not called

Metaphysics

y

ts

author.

TheFirst hilosophy

as

his name

for t. The main ignificancef his sthat

really

Theology

ould probably

ndicate

more

ruly

what

Aristotle

as

here

iming

at

than

does

metaphysics

s

commonly

understood.

For

he

was

obviouslyquite




as

interestedn

the problem

f God

as in

that ofNature.

The moment

we touch

the question

of

what the

ancients

any of

them)did on

the problemof Everything,we are con-

fronted

with the pitiful

meagernessas

compared ith

ours)of heirfactual

nowl-

edge.

Andmuch f his

meagerness

tands

in

relation o every

division

of nature,

t

standswith

special

mportance

n relation

to theheavens.

Undoubtedly

acts

n

this

subdivision re

among

the most

striking

andappealingof

those

n

anysubdivision

whatever. But from their verynature

theyare

speciallybeguiling

to common

experience.

Wonderful,

ndeed,

is the

rising

and setting

of the sun,

the

effects

of

its

radiations upon

the

earth,

and

the responses

to these radiations by

living

bodies.

Nevertheless

o far

s con-

cerns

ll land-and-air

nhabiting

nimals,

man

with

therest, roblems

f finding,

e-

curing

and

utilizing

food

and water are

manifestly

much

more compelling

of

at-

tention

nd

goading

o

action.

The

grow-

ing

light

and warmth

f each

new day

just

omes, s

free race, o

themother

ird

and

to

the mother

human.

Nothing

is

exacted f

he

recipients-unless

ndeed

he

stimulus

o

song by

the

bird

and

prayer

of

thanksgiving

y

the

woman

be

counted

as

exactions.

How differenthe

advent

of the day forboth creatures elative o

food and drink

Be up

and

doing

is the

exaction

now.

For

the

final ssue s

Life-

or-Death.

And

this

must

be

met

quite

otherwise

than by benisons

of

song

or

prayer,

owever

desirable

ndgood these

may be.

So

while

perhaps

nowledge

f heheav-

enly bodies

s

the oldest

branch

fnatural

science,tcertainlys not theoldestbranch

of

practical xperience.

And who has

a

scintilla

of real

evidence

of theoretic

r

speculative

nowledge

n

any

realm

what-

ever

that

does

not rest

finally

n

practical

experience,ndividual nd racial? Herein

matters

f

the mosthuman

oncern re the

issue.

History eveals hatmen

n

all ages have

applied heir maginationsnd peculations

to

their ree-gracexperience f the heav-

enly bodieswith the hope of gaininghelp

therefrom

n

theiractive, oftenhard, ex-

periences

f

uch arthly odies and situa-

tions as are Life-or-Death o them.

To this Aristotlewas not apartfrom is

predecessorsnd contemporaries. ndeed

he seems o have beenbehind omeof hem

insome espects. Butwe canniotn decency

be

unsympathetic

ith our

forebears

n

this

if

due

regard s had to the studyof

astrology mong eoples nd ultures own

to our

very

selves

with

our

daily news-

papers as media for disseminating stro-

logical beneficencend malevolence.

With reference o Aristotle's position

in

this,ourconcern s, as in othermatters,

quite

as

muchwith

his

thinkingn thebasis

of

the

factual knowledge he possessed,

as

with his knowledgetself. And ourmain

interests, of course, he questionof how

his

conception fentelecheiatood in rela-

tion to

his conception fEverything, s-

pecially

as to the heavens as a

part

of

Everything.

It

is significant hat

in

the discussion

which

embodies

his

conclusions bout the

nature f heheavens nd ofGod, Aristotle

begins

not with the

heavenly

bodies

but

with

substances,

matter nd

movements;

and

withactuality, otentiality,

nd

cause.

In

other

words he

begins

where common

experiences egin, namely,

with

earthly

things.

As an illustration

f

how

objectively

eal

he

was,

take

this:

"For how

will

there

be

movement,

f

there

s no actual

cause? Wood

will

surely

ot move

itself-the

arpenter's

rt

must ct

on

t."

(Metaphys.

1071b -8,

Ross

trans.). Then,

true

o his custom s

a

student

f

genesis,

here

mmediately

ollows:

"nor

will

the

menses

nor

the

arth

et

themselvesn

motion,



THE

QUARTERLY

REVIEW OF BIOLOGY

but

the seedsmust act on the earth nd thesemen n

themenses."

Philosophicallv

oundbut cientifically

very nsound,you see-as in manyother nstances.

How then is man-individual man-

whoseexistences dependentn the act of

procreation y a man and a woman, and

on nnumerablects of his own

n

securing

and utilizingnutritial ubstances,going

to

fullycomprehend verything?harply

and certainly imited s a man is both

in

coming obe

and

n

continuing

o

be,

how

canhe encompass

n

any ense,byhisown

acts, even by

his most

powerful

nd com-

prehending cts, that which is entirely

unlimited,o far s his experiencesestify?

The evidence s conclusive, believe,

that on

the

whole

Aristotle pproached

the

greatproblem

n

this

humanly

nimal-

istic fashion.

But what could he really do toward

solving t?

Almost

bsolutely ninformed

as he was

of

the

facts

nd

interpretations

on which the idea of organicevolution

rests; atheticallymeager s was his tech-

nical informationbout reproductionnd

development,bout nutrition, espiration

and tnetabolism, bout

neuromuscular

c-

tion, and about

the

physics

and

chemis-

try

of

the

external nvironments

f

iving

things,

here

was

no

course

open

to him

by

which he

could

advance

beyond

what

othershad done than to put enormous

dependence, ust as they had done, on

thinking

nd

reasoning bout

such

obser-

vationaldata

as

theypossessed.

Now

this

sort of

thing mplied as

it

always does)

discussion, argument, speculation,

dis-

putation.

It meant dialectics. And dia-

lectics s a methodofstriving fter ruth

that

has had tremendous

ogue

n

the his-

tory f

human

ulture. And there s

much

uncertaintys towhether hebalance heet

of

such

striving

hows

truth

n

the

black

or in

the red.

A

greatpart

of

Aristotle's

ffort

o

solve

the

problem

of

All

Existence

was

made

by applying

his

verymethod. There

is

no doubt

about it. Accordingly is re-

sultshave

to be testedby this

criterions

well as

by that ofobservational

rocedure

and inevitable ogic.

Against

the theory hat

number s

in

essence uch as to

be the

sole explanation

of Everything;

also the theory that

Platonic

Ideas hold this exalted

place

Aristotle

evelshisgreatdialectic

powers.

How successful e

was in this, I do

not

undertake

o judge.

Nor does it seem

to

me of much importance,ts

significance

beinghistorical and logical ratherthan

factual.

Offargreatermportance

s the

circumstance

hat

at a deeper,morevital

level ofhis information

nd

his thought,

he recognized

hat a

sine

qua

non to any

body's

having

information r

thoughts

about

the

nature

of numbers

r of Ideas

or

anything lse is

the factof

beingalive

with

all

this

mplies

s

to begetting, irth,

growth nddifferentiation;lsoas to many

vastly omplex

rganic

unctionsspecially

of

digestion

nd metabolism,

nd of

sensi-

tivity.

ARISTOTLE

S

THEOLOGY

AND

ENTELECHEIA

That

he

tripped

few

times when

he

tackled he

problem

f

Everything,

s

not

surprising.

Indeed,all things

onsidered,

it swonderfulhathedid as well as hedid.

And

venture o contend

hathis faithful-

ness, on

the whole, to

his conception

of

entelecheiaas a

major

factor

n his

accom-

plishing

whatever f value he

did accom-

plish here.

Let

us

examine hen hequestion

f

what

exactly

he did towardsquaring

his

con-

ception

with

his

dialectical

efforts.

We

can useRoss's Selections,Ross,

927)

to

good

advantage. The group

of selections

combinedby

Ross

under

the title

"Aris-

totle's

Theology

andAstronomy," egins

(in

keeping with what we

pointed

out



ARISTOTLE

AND

ENTELECHEIA

above about

Aristotle's tarting

his dis-

cussion

of

the

Heavens with his earthly

experiences)

s

follows:

Sincetherewerethreekindsofsubstance,wo of

them hysical

nd

one unmovable, egarding

he

atter

we

must

ssert

hat t is necessary hat

there hould

be

an

eternal

nmovable

ubstance.

For substances

are

thefirst

f

existing hings,

nd

if they

re all

de-

structible,ll things re

destructible.

But

it

is im-

possible

hatmovementhould ither

ome

nto

being

or cease

o be;

for

t must lwayshave

existed." (Me-

taph

io7ib

1-7.)

This

problemof substancc

s

upon

us

here

n

tsfull erribleness.

As for hetwo

physical inds, hematerial, rsubstratum

of

bodies,

and the bodies

themselves

s

forms,

Aristotle was no more dubious

about

hem han

is any onsistentmodern

naturalist

a naturalist, hat

is, who

has

not become sophisticated

by atomistic

physics).

It

was the third

kind, the

un-

movable

kind, that

troubledhim most.

For

eventhough

he foundgreatdifficulty

inmaking t

fit

with the otherkinds,he

still

thought

he could

not

get

alongwith-

out

it. And

one of

the particularly

ard

questions

t

connection

with

it

was that

seemingly

t

must e

non-sensible.

"For (i)

it [Physics]

oes not deal with the

final

cause

for

this s

the good,

and

this s

found

n

the

field f action

ndmovement;nd t is the

first over

-for that

s

the nature

f the

end-but

in the case

of

things

nmovable

here s no firstmover),

nd

X)

in

general,t is hardto say whether he sciencewe are

looking

for

i.e.,

"Wisdom s a science f first

rinci-

ples"] deals

with

perceptible

ubstances

r not with

them, ut

withcertain

thers." (Metaph. 059a

35)

"Hard

to say" indeed

For even today

where rewe withreferenceo t? Modern

physics

eems

actually

to

have fallenbe-

hind Aristotle o the extent hat t

is now

staking

verything

n

atoms s experimen-

tal analysisknows them and as theycan

be

treated

uantitatively.

Nor have

the

prevalent

chools

of

philosophy,

thics

nd

religion,

made clear and

solid advance

beyond

im.

For

n

none

f

thesehas

sub-

stance s

form n thesense of Aristotelian

morphology

received any approach

to

adequate

recognition. So the question

we

are asking

boils down to this:

What did

Aristotle o toward econciling is "usual

method

of

investigation,"

.e. of

"analys-

ing a compoundwhole

nto ts eastparts,"

with his

supposednecessityn a particular

case, that

of the

problem

f

Everything,

of

proceeding

y

the

reverse

method?

For

as we see, he reallybegan

with the

parts

(least parts?) n this

case and tried

by the

dialectic

methodto conceive

the wholc.

Here is a passage thatseemsto me to go

farby implication oward

answering

he

question.

Arguing orhis theory

f a "first" gent

as

thecause

of ll

objectively nown

hings

he

says:

Since

i)

this

s

a

possible

account

f

the

matter,

and X)

if

t werenot true,

heworldwould have pro-

ceeded ut

of

night nd "all things ogether"

nd out

of

non-being,

hese

ifficulties

aybe

taken

s

solved.

There is, then, somethingwhich is alwaysmoved

with

n unceasing

motion,which

s

motion

n a circle;

and

this

s

plain

not n

theory nly

but

n

fact.

There-

fore hefirst

eavensmust

e eternal.

There

s

there-

fore lso something

hichmoves hem.

And

ince hat

which

s

moved

nd

moves

s intermediate,here s a

mover

which moves

without

being

moved, being

eternal,

substance,

nd

actuality. (Metaph.

I072.a

i8-15

Ross

trans.).

The crucial point

here s that the last

wordofthepassageis actuality energeia)

and

not

complete reality (entelecheia).

May

we

not

properly

sk

why

this eternal

substance

hat s

insensible

nd

is

a

mover

of the heavens and

all

things

without

itself

being

moved, hould

not

be

charac-

terized

s

complete eality

nd not

merely

as

actuality?

Is it not

justifiable

o con-

jecture

hat heremarkable

omethinghat

Aristotle ere ssumed eatthe ametime

feltto

be lacking

the sort

of

reality hat

led

him

to conceive

ntelecheia?eflect

n

the

ncongruity

f

applying

he same term

to

such

a

phenomenon

s he

supposed

he



30

THE QUARTERLY REVIEW

OF BIOLOGY

heavens to be, that

he

applied

to

the

phenomenon

f the transformation

f ice

into water (this

article,part

I, QUART.

REV. BIOL., Vol. 7. p. 383)

or of hechange

of a warmbodyto a cold one p. 384).

The

difficulty

f observing ll

that is

observable

of

any

whole-and-its-parts,

regardless

fsize and

complexity,nd of

thinking bout

t, and beingentirely

on-

sistent hroughout,

s undoubtedly

very

great. Yet that

uch onsistencywaswhat

Aristotle

eally

felt theneed of

when he

conceived

ntelecheia-,ppears

ome certain.

Howdifficultt s to measure p tothe aim

is

llustrated y

thefact hatAristotle

im-

self almost certainly

ell shortnow

and

then.

An

important

nstances furnished

by

his efforts

n connectionwith this

very

problem

fEverything.

He, like

nnumer-

able otherpersons

n

many ages and cul-

tures

down to some

of

the distinguished

astronomers

nd

all of the astrologers

f

ourownday,conceived he heavens o be

the

region

which

s

thefavorite,

f

not

the

exclusive bode,

of

the eternal

nd divine.

WithAristotlemovement as,

as we

have

noticed,

what

he regarded

s particuarly

convincing bjective

vidence

f

he ternal.

For

the

dialectical

proof f the endlessness

ofmovement

n

a

circle eemed

o him con-

clusive.

And

since

this was

supposed

o

be

the

course

traveled

by

the

heavenly

bodies, theyfurnishedroofofeternality

and

divinity.

His

discussions

of

the

heavens, specially

n

the

Dc

Caelo nd the

Metaphysics,

ake

it

clear

that

his

inter-

est herewas

at

least as

much

theological

as scientific.

n

thesediscussions

e seems

to

flatly

ontradict is

conception

f en-

telecheia

n one

instance. And it

is fair o

guess, think,

hathis contradictions

due

to thedual interest ndicated. The con-

tradiction ccurs

n

thefollowing assage.

"Evidently

here

s

but one heaven.

For

if there

are

manyheavens

s

there re

manymen,

he moving

principles,

f which each hcavenwill

be one, will be

one

n

form ut n numbermany. But all things hat

are many

n

number

ave

matter. (For

one and the

sameformula

pplies o many hings, .g., theformula

of man; butSocrates s one.) But the primaryssence

has not

matter; or t s complete ealityentelecheia)."

(Metaph. 074a 36, Ross trans.).

It is in connectionwith this passage that Ross

writesme(without nowing fmy eferenceo t here):

"Yet

for hemostpartAristotle sesthewords entel-

echeia nd

energeia)nterchangeably.Ross also writes

"Energeia

as

not a well-established reekwork. It,

no

less than

entelecheia

eems o

be

a

coinage

of Aris-

totle. At

least the new Liddell and Scott has found

no earlier se of

t." Such being

he

case,

s not

the

question fair ne: Why houldAristotle ave coined

two

such

important ords

f

they

were

quite

inter.

changeablenhis thought?

The

statementhat complete ealityhas

notmatter

s unreconcilable,o

far

s

I

can

see, with the

many ssertions,

irect

r

by

clear

nference,

hat

complete eality

oes

includematter. The instanceof ice and

water,

and

of warm and

cold

referred

o

above may erve

s

examples

n

the

purely

physical modern ense) realm. A foot-

note to

this

passage by Ross seems o fur-

nish similarevidence

for

the biological

realm.

"The Logos," says the note, "is

common o all

men,

so

that

it

must

be

matter

which gives Socrates

his

unique-

ness.

It

maybe

contended, nd

it is

probably

true, hat

the matter

ssumed

o

be respon-

sible

for

Socrates'

uniqueness

s

wholly

differentrom he "primary ssence," of

the

passage,

and which is the

"complete

reality" of

it. But this really helps to

focalize

my

riticism.

For evidence s un-

escapable

that Aristotle

was

fully

com-

mitted,

s

a

biologist,

o the idea

that

he

germ f

man

s

of

organisms enerally

as

potentially

he organism

n

its

actualized

form

o

far. In

other

words,

he

was

com-

mitted o themoderndea ofhereditys to

propagation,

nd

to epigenesis

s

to ontog-

eny.

More

of

the

passage

in

De

Partibus

quoted (this article, part

I,

QUART.

REV.

BIOL.,

Vol.

7,

p.

386)

is

especially

lear

on



ARISTOTLE

AND

ENTELECHEIA

31

the

point: "Every germ mplies

two

or-

ganisms, he parent nd

the

progeny.

For

the

germ

r

seed s

both

the seed ofthe

or-

ganismfromwhich t came,

of

the horse,

for nstance, romwhich it was derived,

and the seed of the organism hat

will

eventually rise from t." (De part.

64Ib

33-37). This is, so far as matter s con-

cerned,

n

accord

withthefully stablished

facts

f

genesis

nd

s opposed o thetheory

of omething, primaryssence, or xam-

ple, in addition o the matter. For even

the

germplasm heory,though holding

that the germinal substance does not

really omefrom he parent, oes not

in-

voke an

essence

or

first gent,

or

cause

in

the meaning f Aristotlewhen he de-

parts

from is

usual course

s a

student

f

livingnature nd becomes enuinelymeta-

physical s a speculator boutthe heavens.

Attentionmay be incidentally alled to the fact

that the theory f germinalmutation f the ultra-

orthodox school of genetics s perilouslynear, n

logic,to theAristotelianheory f non-materialirst

agent,

r

essence s thecauseofthemutations, hat s,

of

the source f new

species.

Fortunately,s it seems o me, Aristotle

connects

his

theoriesof thought and

of

motion n such a way as to give added

justification

o

the view that

he

contra-

dictshimself hen

he usesentelecheia

n the

instance ited. The passages am about

to quotewill be more asily seen to bear

on

the

point

f

read

n

connection ith our

examination

of

Aristotle's

views about

pleasure

n relation

o thought. Directly

continuous

ith the

passage quoted bove

and

ending

with

"there s

a

moverwhich

moveswithout being moved," etc., we

have:

"And the

object

of

desire and

the

object

of

thought move

in

this way;

theymove without being moved. The

primary bjects

of

desire and of thought

are

the

same. For

the apparentgood

is

the

object

of

appetite,

nd the real

good

is

the

primaryobject

of

rational desire"

(Metaph.

1072za

2z6-z8 oss trans.). Then

comes

a

long discussion

of

the inter-

mingling f thingsdistinctly arthywith

things heavenly.

In

this discussion the

concept of actuality (energeia)plays a

large part while that of complete eality

(entelecheia)

lays no part at all. Some

of

the instances ollow:

"Since

there

s

somethingwhich moves while

itself nmoved, xisting ctually, his can in no way

be

otherwise han it

is.

(1o72.b 7).

.

.

On such a

principle, hen,depend he heavens nd the world of

nature. And its life s such as the best which we

enjoy, nd enjoybut for short ime. Foric is ever

in

this tate which we cannot e), since ts actuality

is also pleasure

1072.b

I5)

. . .

If, then,God is always

in that good state n which we sometimes re, this

compels urwonder

..

And ife lso belongs o God;

for

he actuality f thought s life, nd God is that

actuality; nd God's essential ctuality s

life most

good and eternal. We say thereforehat God is

a

livingbeing, ternal,mostgood, so that ife nd dura-

tion continuous nd eternalbelong to God; for his

is

God."

(I072.b 2.5)

Another,more iteral t east

n

part, ranslationf

the ast

entence

s:

"Now,

our tatement

s,this,-that

the

Deity

is an

animal that

is

everlasting

nd most

excellent

n

nature;

o that with the

Deity

life and

duration

re

uninterrupted

nd

eternal:

for

his

con-

stitutes

he

very

ssence

f God." (M'Mahon, I9IO,

p.

332).

The passage n which

his

occurs s regarded

by

M'Mahon as

probably

the

most ucid

statement

of Aristotle'snotions of

the

Divine

Nature

of the

Being and Attributes f God."

That God is a Zoon, verlasting

nd

very

good; and thatZoc s lifeco-enduringith

God is

surely eserving

f

pecial

ttention

as

indicating

he

remarkable

ontrast

e-

tween he Greek

onception

f animal

nd

the

well-nigh niversal

modern

onception

of

it.

In

the

light

of

what has

been already

presented

n

this essay, s it any wonder

that Aristotle

hould

find

o

place

for

his

conception f entelecheian the reasoning

these tatements

resent? Surely,

hecon-

ception

of

God as

an animal

n

the

sense

thatfish, ird,mammal,

nd man are

spe-

cies of the

genus

nimal would

be

as

con-



3

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW

OF

BIOLOGY

trary, ven as repugnant,

o the general

spiritof the Aristotelian cience and phi-

losophy

s to thatof

any system

whatever

ofscience, rphilosophy, r ethics,or re-

ligion. Yet rigid adherence o the cardi-

nal principles fbiology

nd ogic, ofboth

of

which Aristotle s the

acknowledged

founder,would seem

to

commithim

to

just

that

conception.

Such

passagemakes

newonder hethert may

have eenwrittenor spoken?)ong eforets uthor

had mmersediniself

n

the tudy f iving ature

and f he sychicalrocessesnvolved

n

the tudy,

andthatheneverook tup again nearnest.The

problemf he hronological

rdernwhich heAris-

totelian

orks

were roduced,

o

which

xpertsre

now giving erious

ttention,

hows

its great mpor-

tance

n

suchpassages.

If,then,my nterpretation

f

Aristotle's

system

of

knowledge

and

thought,

and

especially

of

his

conception

f

entelecheia,

is

on

the

whole

sound,

he

mental

icture

of

the

man

and his systemmust be very

different

rom hat which seems

to

hang

in

the

mental

galleries

fmost

of

those

n

which there

s

any

picture

f

him at

all.

For see what

in

barest utline uch a pic-

ture portrays:

A

man insatiablycurious about, and

determined

o know

and

understand

s far

as

possible, verything

hether

f

earth

r

heaven.

Committed o the gigantic task thus

implied

nd attending reatly o the psy-

chical activities nvolved

n the

task,

the

man

pictured locks

out for he earth s a

compound

whole

the

domain

of

natural

sciencewith

a

comprehensiveness

nd,

for

livingthings, detailedtruthfulnesshat

no

one before

him had remotely ap-

proached.

For all the earthyportion f the task,

the

pictured

man

recognizes

with

remark-

able nsight

hat

nterpretation

f

whole-

and-its-parts equires a conception for

which

he coins

the

tcrm

ntelecheia,

As to every

spect xceptone of the ter-

restrial ortion

fthe task, he is

presented

as

satisfied

hat

his new term s applicable.

The exception e

seems o feel oncerns

he

powerof reasonas possessedby a single

animal

species, man. Here,

seemingly

after

onsiderableperplexity, e

decides

that his new

term

does

not

apply. This

power

s

too

great, oo precious, oodivine,

to be included

ven n man'scompleteness

as

an

earthly

being.

Finally when

he who is pictured omes

to the

problem fthe

heavens, he

celestial

position fhis task, he appears tillmore

perplexed

s to the

status

of

his new con-

ception. Now we seem

o

see him

falter

between

wo

stupendous

lternatives:

i)

Must

he

conceive he

heavens

s the

abode

of

Deity-yes,

in

ultimate essence very

Deity

itself-to

be entirely

nknowable,

inaccessible, o

earthborn

man?

Or, (z)

May

he

conceive he heavens

nd God

not

thus beyondthe reachofman ifmanbe

conceived

n

one of

his

parts,

his

reason,

to differrom imself

s

earthborn,

n

just

the

way requisite

o

give

him

the

power

f

knowingGod?

In neither

lternative, otice,

could en-

telecheia,

arth-engendered

s we have

seemed

to

find

t, be strictly

nd

fully

applicable.

MOD1ERNIZED ARISTOTELIANISM

What,

we

may

now

properlysk,

would

be

necessary

o

transform

his mental

pic-

ture

of the

relatively

ittle

informed n-

cientAristotle

nto he

picture

f modern

man, enormously

nformed s he

may be?

Can

there

e serious oubt

s to

what

the

revised icturewould show? Recur

o

the

problem f the

soul

as Aristotle

truggled

with it-the problemof whether there

are three

souls,

or one

soul

with three

parts, nutritive,

ensitive,

and

rational.

Examinethis

n

the

light

of

the

principle

of

the

vvhole-and-its-parts

hich

Aristotle



ARISTOTLE AND

ENTELECHEIA

33

himself learly aw in many f ts aspects.

Examine t also

in

the enormous ddition

of ightfrom resent-daynatomy, hysi-

ology and chemistry f nutrition nd of

stimulus-responsendthe higher ndhigh-

est mental ctivities.

From such an examinationconjoined

with a firm

rip

on

what Aristotle imed

at by his term

entelecheia,

he conclusion

seems o meunescapable hatno suchgiant

intellect s his is essential o see that the

complete eality

f a man

does ncludehis

attribute

f

reason

egardless

f

how

varied,

orsubtle, rmighty t may be.

Now this s a way ofsaying hat n in-

venting he word entelecheiaristotle aw

conceptually arther

nto

the nature

of

man

than

the meagerfactual knowledge

he

possessed eemed

o warrant.

Further,t is a way of sayingthat the

dualism of

Soul

and

Body,

of

Mind

and

Matter,

s

thishas

plaguedmuch

f

human

culturedisappears

when

subjected

o

the

joint ightof hebestAristotelianhought

and the

best analyticalresults

f

modern

research.

But

f

the

revised icturewould portray

one eagerly willing to include his own

highest,

most

herished owers mong

his

earthborn ossessions,

ven

more would

it

portray

ne

willing

to

include

heheav-

ens

regardless

f

how

divinely onceived,

as

inseparablyinked

with the earth

to

constitute he Grand Whole of Things.

For reflect

n

what

the

astronomy,

he

physics,

nd the

chemistry

f

our

era have

done to confirm

bjectively

ot

only

Aris-

totle's reasoned onclusion hat "there

s

but

one

heaven,"

but

that his one s

by

no

means

utterly ut away

and different

rom

mother arth. Had Aristotle

ossessed

s

muchobservationally erified

nformation

about the movements f the earth,the

other

planets,

nd the

stars; about gravi-

tation; bout

the

chemical

omposition

f

the

sun

and

other

heavenlybodies; about

the natureof light and heat; about the

electro-magneticonditionsof the earth

and the un; and about radiation, s enters

into the commonknowledge f our day,

it does not eem o me at all probable hat

he would have staked s much s he did on

the nature f the heavens n contrastwith

the

nature

f

the earth,

n

constructingis

theory f he ternal nddivine-in a word,

his Theology, And this is equivalent o

saying, ccording o the viewpoint

f

this

essay, hatunder uch onditions e would

not have hesitatedto conceive

entelecheia

(CompleteReality) n such a way that it

would extend o both Earth and Heaven

and all that in them s, man and all his

powersby

no

meansexcepted.

LIMITATION

OF ENTELECHEIA

Buteven hough ntelecheiaould extend

thus far t would not imply coexistence

with,

for

instance, he

Hebrew

Yahveh

or

the Mohammedan

Allah. For these

names eem ohavebeendesigned obeall

otherNames above; Names,

that

is,

that

should designate Being

and Power ade-

quate

for all

needs, desires,

nd

hopes

of

humanhearts

nd heads.

An extended iscussion

fthe

portion

f

Everything

hat

xtends eyond

he

mean-

ing

of

entelecheia

s

for

that

very

reason

beyond

he

cope

of

his

ssay.

One

aspect

of

the problemmay, however,be appro-

priately oticed o the extent fa few en-

tences.

It

would

seem

that

Everything

What-

ever

would

have

to

include

all that now

is,

all that

previously

has

been,

and

all

that

thereafter ill or

may

be.

In

other

words,

All

Existence

hus

conceivedmust

be

coextensivewith

Space

and

Time

(as

generally nderstood).

Now

due

consid-

eration or the principles f potentiality

and

actuality and great

onsideration

e

have

seenAristotle

iving hem)

seems

to

require he recognition hat All

Existence

QUAR.

REV.

BIOL.,

VOL.

9t

NO. 1



34 THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY

Whateverwould

have to includenot only

all that has been

or

now

is

actualized

of

all potentiality,

ut

all

that might pos-

sibly be actualized. But

the concept of

entelecheiaeally includes, accordingto

our interpretation,nly

so much of po-

tentiality

s has been and

is

now being

actualized.

That is to

say

any potenti-

alities that

a

body

or

situation

mayhave

that

never

become

actualities

would

not

be

included n the

concept.

To

illustrate,

any potentialities

human

infant

may

possesswhichnever

ome o

actuality ven

thougha well-rounded hree scoreyears

and

ten

or

more

may be lived,would

not

be included n the

entelecheia

f that

indi-

vidual. By

this

view

the "complete

reality" f human ife,

no

matter

ow full

of

years

nd

good

deeds

t

maybe, would

not include

those

possibilities

t

had at

the

beginning

hat

were never

realized.

Immeasurableinfinite?) otentialities

r

possibilitieswould therefore xist that

would

not come

within

the

meaning

of

entelecheia,ut

would

ome

within

heseem-

ingly

ntendedmeaning

of

the Divine.

So

it

results

hat

normously eaningful

and useful

s

entelecheia

s

for

natural

ci-

ence and natural

philosophy,

t

falls short

of

adequacy

n

ts

application

o

All

Exist-

ence

Whatever. The

"complete

reality"

of the

concept

s

not

complete

nough,

s

one may say, to includefully ha't spect

of man's

response

o

nature

or

which

in

all

his

ages

and

cultural

stages

he has

sought

atisfaction,

nd

to the

ummed-up,

abstracted bject

of

which he has

given

the name God

in one or more

of ts

num-

berless

ynonyms

nd variants. The

flood

of

stimuli

from

he externalworld that

pourconstantly pon

us

as raw

material

of emotional xperience-howvastly his

exceeds,

we now

realize, ur bility

o

give

rational, nalytic

ttention o it

in

all its

details

Accordingly

for

an

adequate

under-

standing fman's

response

o

Nature, spe-

cially

in the

emotional moiety of that

response,we

must go elsewhere han to

the

teachings

of

Aristotle.

Or,

perhaps

moreexactly,forsuch understandinghe

Aristotelian eachings must be

amended

and extended o

make them onform ith

the information

nd ideas

concerning a-

ture mbodied

n

the

world-culturef

our

era.

The presentation

f

what, so far

as

I

have grasped t,

the

suggested

mendment

and extensionwould consist n,

belongs

to quite a differentessayfromnthis.ere

a

mere

hint

n

that

direction

must uffice:

In accordance with the

psychologicallywell-

recognized

mportance f distinguishingetween ny

emotion

s such,

and

the

reasoned

nterpretation

f

that emotion,

t

turns

ut that

the

sharpest ind of

distinction eeds

o

be

made

between

he

mystic

x-

perienceust

as an emotion nd

the

rational

explana-

tion

of that

experience.

For such an

explanation

constitutes

theory,

r

doctrine

commonly

alled

mysticism.So mysticismasnonecessaryonnection

with

religious xperience.

That

emotional tate,

which s

basic

o

the

o-named

mystic xperience,

an

be entirely

dentified ith

out

sensory esponses

o Nature nd our

absolute

epend-

ence

on

Nature.

It

can

be

shown

that almost

cer-

tainly

the

"sense

of oneness

with

God,"

of

the de-

voutly rthodox hristian;

he

"Substance,"

ne

and

eternal,

f

Spinozian

philosophy;

he

"immediate

x-

perience

f

the whole occurrencef

Nature"

of

a

pro-

fessedly

theistic

naturalist ike

John

Burroughs;

and "my mysticworld ovelywith trees nd clouds

and

eddying

treams

have

never seen'

"

of

sightless

persons

ike

Helen

Keller,

re

responses

o

nature

ot

so much

n its

nfinity

f

space

and time s in its

or-

ganizedcompleteness.By

this

nterpretation

mni-

potence

s an

attribute

f

Nature: Omniscience oes

not

xist, ecause

escience

s

an

attribute

f

part

nly

of

nature,

hat

s

to

say,

of man.

(Ritter,

933 pp.

i8, I9.)

Such

an

emotional-intellectual

ttitude

towardNature s thathere ketched s one

concomitant

f

the

acceptance

f

the

Uni-

verse,

the

phrase

being

understood s

in

this secondForeword.

Apparently

his is the aspect of

mnan's



ARISTOTLE

AND ENTELECHEIA

35

response o nature hatmakeshim "incur-

ably," as the expression

as it,

religious

just s, fromnother

spect

fhis

response,

he is "incurably"

urious nd intelligent;

also

scientificnd

philosophic.

That the world s

vastly

more

ndebted

to Aristotle and otherGreeks)for

ogic,

science, and philosophy, than

it is for

religion, houldno onger tand n

theway

(as

for

enturies

t has

stood)

of he

world's

enteringntotheenormous enefitsfthat

indebtedness.

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CHILD, CHARLESM., I92.4, Physiological oundations

of Behavior.

GATES, . I.,

i92.5, Elementary

sychology.

Hicics,R. D.,

I907,

Aristotle e Anima.

JAMBS,WILLIAM,

897,

The

Will

to Believe.

KORZYBSKI,

ALFRED, I933.

Science

and

Sanity,

an

Introduction o Non-Aristotelian ystems nd

GeneralSemantics.

LILLIB, R. S.,

I93I, Types

of

physical determination

and

the

activities

f

living

organisms.

Journal

ofPhilosophy,

ol. XXVIII,

Oct. 8,

pp.

56I-573.

,

932., The

directivenfluencen iving rganism,

ibid.,

Vol. XXIX, Sept., pp. 477-491.

M'MAHON,

JOHN

H.,

I9IO,

The

Metaphysics of Aris-

totle.

PFEFFER,

W., i900, The Physiology

of Plants, trans.

A. J.

wart.

RITTER, WM. E., and BAILEY, EDNA W.,

I92.7,

The

Natural History

of

our Conduct.

1

92.8,

The

organismal

onception,

ts

place n

science,

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its

bearingon philosophy.

Univ.

Calif. ubl.

Zoology,ol. 3I, No. I4,

PP.

307-358.

i92.9, The

problem of names, as illustrated by

the word

"light." Journ. f Philosophy, ol.

XXVI, No. 2.3,

Nov. 7,

pp.

6I7-62.6.

RITTER, WM.

E.,

i929,

Is life quantity? (review of

What

s

Life?by AugustaGaskell), Science, ol.

LXIX, No. I790,

PP.

42.5-427.

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losophy, ol. XXVIII, No. i, Jan.

,

PP.

5-I4.

I

I933, Naturalversus upernatural,r A man

as a UnifiedWhole nd as a PartofNature as a

Unified

Whole. HosmerChapter f

the

Lay-

men'sLeague, FirstUnitarianChurch, erkeley,

California.

Ross,W. D., I92.7, Aristotle elections.

RoYcE, JOSIAH, I908, Outlines f Psychology.

STRATTON,

G. M.,

I9I7,

Theophrastusnd the Greek

PhysiologicalPsychology eforeAristotle.

SMUTS, J. C., i92.6, Holism and Evolution.

1,

931, The scientificworld-picturef today.

Science, ol. 74, Sep. 2.5,pp. 2.97-305.

TOLMAN,

E. C.,

I932.,

PurposiveBehaviorn Animals

and

Men.

WELLDON,

J. E. C., I9I2:, The Politics of Aristotle.

WINSLOW, C-E.A., I92.4,

in

The Child:

His

Nature

and

His

Needs,

dited

y

M.

V.

O'Shea, pp. 2-I3-

23I.

WOODWORTH, ROBERT S., I92.I, Psychology, Study

of

MentalLife.

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