Problems of biology / [George Sandeman].

  • Sandeman, George
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Problems of biology / [George Sandeman]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the science; not on its necessary form, nor on its pro- fessed form, but on its actual form, which is the strange result of the other two. The necessary form is, as we shall see, a theory of individuality. The professed form is that of the induction of general laws from known facts, with the interpolation, here and there, of hypothetical facts which are supposed to be in the same kind, to fill the lacunre which are unavoidably left by tardy research or defective instruments. The actual form is a curious product of these two factors, and its several features are referable to their cooperation. For the great body of biological literature, as distinguished from the archives of research which have no theory behind them, is given to us in the form of a large number of independent systems; and the quality of that independence is the source of the inner confusion. Speak- ing generally, one may say that the systems are each of them divided into two parts; each includes a theory of the development of the individual and a theory of the progressive adaptation of the race; that is, a theory of ontogeny and another of the factors of organic evolution. Or in other words, each biological system has to answer two questions—How are the qualities of the individual re- lated to one another ? And—How do the qualities exist by reason of their significance ? Every system, at least, Avhich has achieved any fame, has given a complete account of these two problems. The systems, therefore, deal with the same matter, and the same wealth of recorded research is before them. As sober inductions built upon the sure ground of observation, they should, one would judge, differ from one another only in unimportant points. Indeed, they should so pass into one another that the character of independence of systems should be impossible to them. They should form one body of knowledge, going ever hand in hand with research, informing its method, and certainly capable of being affirmed or denied by a final reference to fact. There
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