The Science and Philosophy of the Organism

by Hans Driesch

Taken as a simple enumeration or registration, history, of course, cannot claim to be a “science” unless we are prepared to denude that word of all specific meaning. But that would hardly be useful. As a matter of fact, what has actually claimed to be history, has always been more than a mere enumeration, even in biology proper. So-called phylogeny implies, as we have shown, that every one of its actual forms contains some rational elements. Phylogeny always rests on the assumption that only some of the characters of the organisms were changed in transformism and that what remained unchanged may be explained by the fact of inheritance.

But this, remember, was the utmost we were able to say for phylogeny. It remains fantastic and for the most part unscientific in spite of this small degree of rationality, as to which it is generally not very clear itself. For nothing is known with regard to the positive factors of transformism, and we were only able to offer the discussion of a few possibilities in place of a real theory of the factors of descent.

In spite of that it will not be without a certain logical value to begin our analysis of history in general by the discussion of possibilities again. Biology proper would hardly allow us to do more: for the simple “fact” of history is not even a “fact” in this science, but an hypothesis, albeit one of some probability.

As discussions of mere possibilities should always rest on as broad a basis as possible, we shall begin our analysis by raising two general questions. To what kinds of realities may the concept of history reasonably be applied? And what different types of “history” would be possible a priori, if the word history is to signify more than a mere enumeration?

1. The Possible Aspects of History

Of course, we could select one definite volume in space and call all the consecutive stages which it goes through, its history: it then would be part of its history that a cloud was formed in it, or that a bird passed through it on the wing. But it would hardly be found very suggestive to write the history of space-volumes. In fact, it is to bodies in space that all history actually relates, at least indirectly, for even the history of sciences is in some respect the history of men or of books. It may suffice for our analysis to understand here the word body in its popular sense.

Now in its relation to bodies history may have the three following aspects, as far as anything more than a simple enumeration comes into account. Firstly, it may relate to one and the same body, the term body again to be understood popularly. So it is when the individual history of the organism is traced from the egg to the adult, or when the history of a cloud or of an island or of a volcano is written. Secondly, the subject-matter of history may be formed by the single units of a consecutive series of bodies following each other periodically. To this variety of history the discoveries of Mendel and his followers would belong in the strictest sense, but so does our hypothetical phylogeny and a great part of the history of mankind. And lastly, there is a rather complicated kind of sequence of which the “history” has actually been written. History can refer to bodies which are in no direct relation with one another, but which are each the effect of another body that belongs to a consecutive series of body-units showing periodicity. This sounds rather complicated; but it is only the strict expression of what is perfectly familiar to you all. Our sentence indeed is simply part of the definition of a history of art or of literature for instance—or, say, of a phylogenetic history of the nests of birds. The single pictures are the subjects of the history of art, and nobody would deny that these pictures are the effects of their painters, and that the painters are individuals of mankind—that is, that they are bodies belonging to a consecutive series of body-units showing periodicity. Of course, it is only improperly that we speak of a history of pictures or of books or of nests. In fact, we are dealing with painters, and with men of letters or of science, and with certain birds, and therefore the third type of history may be reduced to the second. But it was not without value to pursue our logical discrimination as far as possible.

So far we have always spoken of history as being more than a mere enumeration, but we have not ascertained what this “more” signifies. It is not very difficult to do so: in fact, there are three different types of history, each of a different degree of importance with respect to the understanding of reality.

In the first place, history may start as a mere enumeration at the beginning, and at the end, in spite of all further endeavour, may remain that and nothing more. That may occur in the first as well as in the second group of our division of history with regard to its relation to bodies. Take a cloud and describe its history from the beginning to the end: there would never be much more than pure description. Or take one pair of dogs and describe them and their offspring for four generations or more: I doubt if you will get beyond mere descriptions in this case either. The only step beyond a mere enumeration which we can be said to have advanced in these instances, consists in the conviction, gained at the end of the analysis, that nothing more than such an enumeration is in any way possible.