[141] H. de Vries, *Species and Varieties: their Origin by Mutation*,
London, 1905. A short review of the “mutation-theory” is given by Francé
in *Zeitschrift f. d. Ausbau d. Entwickelungslehre*, i. 1907. It is well
known that Gautier, and, in the first place, Korshinsky, advocated a
similar view previous to the authors named in the text.
CONCLUSIONS FROM THE FIRST MAIN PART OF THESE LECTURES
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 branch of biological science.
The chief result of the first main part of our lectures has been to
prove that an autonomy of life phenomena exists at least in some
departments of individual morphogenesis, and probably in all of them;
the real starting-point of all morphogenesis cannot be regarded as a
machine, nor can the real process of differentiation, in all cases where
it is based upon systems of the harmonious equipotential type. There
cannot be any sort of machine in the cell from which the individual
originates, because this cell, including both its protoplasm and its
nucleus, has undergone a long series of divisions, all resulting in
equal products, and because a machine cannot be divided and in spite of
that remain what it was. There cannot be, on the other hand, any sort
of machine as the real foundation of the whole of an harmonious system,
including many cells and many nuclei, because the development of this
system goes on normally, even if its parts are rearranged or partly
removed, and because a machine would never remain what it had been in
such cases.
If our analytical discussions have thus led us to establish a typical
kind of vitalism, it follows that we can by no means agree with Wilhelm
Roux in his denomination of the analytical science of the individual
form and form-production as “Entwickelungsmechanik,” “developmental
mechanics,” a title, which, of course, might easily be transformed
into that of “morphogenetic mechanics,” to embrace not only normal
development, but restitution and adaptation too. We feel unable to speak
of “mechanics” where just the contrary of mechanics, in the proper
meaning of the word, has been proved to exist.
Names of course are of comparatively small importance, but they
should never be allowed to be directly misleading, as indeed the term
“Entwickelungsmechanik” has already proved to be. Let us rather say,
therefore, that we have finished with this lecture that part of our
studies in biology which has had to deal with morphogenetic physiology
or physiological morphogenesis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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