THE GIFFORD LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN IN THE YEAR 1907 BY HANS DRIESCH, Ph.D. HEIDELBERG LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1908 All rights reserved...

This work is not a text-book of theoretical biology; it is a systematic presentment of those biological topics which bear upon the true philosophy of nature. The book is written in a decidedly subjective manner, and it seems to me that this is just what “Gifford Lectures” ought to be. They ought never to lose, or even try to lose, their decidedly personal character. My appointment as Gifford Lecturer, the news of which reached me in February 1906, came just at the right moment in the progress of

On Lord Gifford’s Conception of “Science” This is the first time that a biologist has occupied this place; the first time that a biologist is to try to carry out the intentions of the noble and high-minded man to whom this lectureship owes its foundation. On such an occasion it seems to be not undesirable to inquire what Lord Gifford’s own opinions about natural science may have been, what place in the whole scheme of human knowledge he may have attributed to those branches of it which have beco

Evolutio and Epigenesis in the old Sense The organism is a specific body, built up by a typical combination of specific and different parts. It is implied in the words of this definition, that the organism is different, not only from crystals, as was mentioned in the last lecture, but also from all combinations of crystals, such as those called dendrites and others, which consist of a typical arrangement of identical units, the nature of their combination depending on the forces of every single

THE THEORY OF WEISMANN Of all the purely hypothetic theories on morphogenesis that of August Weismann 9 can claim to have had the greatest influence, and to be at the same time the most logical and the most elaborated. The “germ-plasma” theory of the German author is generally considered as being a theory of heredity, and that is true inasmuch as problems of inheritance proper have been the starting-point of all his hypothetic speculations, and also form in some respect the most valuable part of

We have finished our long account of individual morphogenesis proper. If we look back upon the way we have traversed, and upon those topics in particular which have yielded us the most important general results, the material for the higher analysis which is to follow, it must strike us, I think, that all these results relate to regulations. In fact, it is “secondary” form-regulations, according to our terminology, that we have been studying under the names of equifinality, back-differentiation,

All organisms are endowed with the faculty of re-creating their own initial form of existence. In words similar to these Alexander Goette, it seems to me, has given the shortest and the best expression of the fact of inheritance. Indeed, if the initial form in all its essentials is re-created, it follows from the principle of univocality, that, ceteris paribus , it will behave again as it did when last it existed. By the fact of inheritance life becomes a rhythmic phenomenon, that is to say, a p

In finishing our chapter on inheritance, we at the same time have finished the first main part of our lectures; that part of them which has been devoted exclusively to the study of the morphogenesis of the individual , including the functioning of the adult individual form. We now turn to our second part, which is to deal with the problems of the diversities of individual forms, with morphological systematics. The end of our chapter on inheritance has already led us to the threshold of this bran

Rational Systematics All systematics which deserves the predicate “rational” is founded upon a concept or upon a proposition, by the aid of which a totality of specific diversities may be understood. That is to say: every system claiming to be rational gives us a clue by which we are able to apprehend either that there cannot exist more than a certain number of diversities of a certain nature, or that there can be an indefinite number of them which follow a certain law with regard to the charact

It is most generally conceded at the present time that the actually existing state of all organisms whatsoever is the result of their history. What does that mean? What are the foundations upon which the assumption rests? What is the relation of systematics to history? In raising such questions and considerations we are treading the ground sacred to the theory of descent. I well know that you prefer the name “theory of evolution” for what I am speaking of: but it may be misleading in various res

History, in the strictest sense of the word, is the enumeration of the things which have followed one another in order of time. History deals with the single, with regard both to time and space. Even if its facts are complex in themselves and proper to certain other kinds of human study, they are nevertheless regarded by history as single. Facts, we had better say, so far as they are regarded as single, are regarded historically, for what relates to specific time and space is called history. Tak

We have finished our analysis of the history of mankind as the only instance of an historical biological process that is actually known to exist and is not only assumed hypothetically. What we have learnt from this analysis, though certainly important in itself, has not afforded us any new result for theoretical biology. The history of mankind is proved to be of philosophical importance, at present, so far only as it offers instances to the science of psychology; besides that it may be of value

BY G. CHATTERTON HILL Demy 8vo, Cloth, 600 pages. Price 12s. 6d. net. Post Free, Price 12s. 11d. SOME PRESS OPINIONS “A most praiseworthy and suggestive work—should certainly be studied by every serious thinker.”— Morning Post. “Mr. Hill is decidedly doctrinaire, but his book is packed with scientific and sociological facts, and it gives the reader healthy intellectual exercise.”— Christian World. “Shows wide reading, is written in a forcible and clear style, and contains much that is interestin