His work, “Die organischen Regulationen, Vorbereitungen zu einer Theorie des Lebens,” 1901, is a systematic survey of illustrations of the “autonomy” of vital processes. In his “Analytischen Theorie der organischen Entwicklung,” Leipzig, 1894, his special biological (“ontogenetic”) views are still in process of development. But even here his sharp rejection of Darwinism is complete (see VI., Par. 3, on “the absurd assumption of a contingent character of morphogenesis”). It is not for nothing that the book is dedicated to Wigand and C. F. von Baer. He says that in regard to development we must “picture to ourselves external agents acting as stimuli and achieving transformations which have the character, not analysable as to its causes, of being adapted to their end, that is, capable of life.” Incomplete, but very instructive too, are his discussions on the causal and the teleological outlook, the necessity for both, and the impossibility of eliminating the latter from the study of nature. In a series of subsequent works, Driesch has defined and strengthened this position, finally reaching the declaration: “Darwin belongs to history, just like that other curiosity of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both are variations on the theme, ‘How to lead a whole generation by the nose!’ ” (“Biolog. Zentralbl.” 1896, p. 16). We are concerned with Driesch more particularly in Chapter IX.
54 See Driesch “Kritisches und Polemisches,” Biol. Zentrabl., 1902, p. 187, Note 2.
55 “Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift,” xiv., p. 273.
56 See § 70 and subsequent sections. Take, for instance, the sentences:—“Every production of material things and of their forms must be interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws,” and the contrast: “Some products of material nature cannot be interpreted as possible in terms of purely mechanical laws.”
57 To Aristotle the “Soul” (ψυχὴ ϕυτική Psyche, phytike) was in the first place a purely biological principle. But by means of his elastic formula of Potentiality and Actuality he was able to make the transition to the psychological with apparent ease. The biological is to him in “potentiality” what sensation, impulse, imagination are in “realisation.” But the biological and the psychological are not related to one another as stages. Growth, form, development, &c., cannot be carried over through any “actualisatio” into sensation, consciousness and the like.