Abstract

In considering this problem a distinction should first be made between its scientific and it philosophical aspects. The scientific problem is that of defining in exact understandable terms those conditions and factors which make possible the synthesis of the living organism from the simpler elements of the non-living environment, and also its maintenance in the adult state as a fully developed and autonomous organic individual. The problem as thus stated is one to be approached by methods of observation and experiment, leading to verifiable results which are then expressed in systematic and intelligible form. The final statements or representations thus reached, the accepted scientific generalizations, inevitably take on a theoretical form, and as such are necessarily partial and abstract. Many of them, in fact, are to be regarded primarily as simplifications or models devised in the interest of clear representation or understanding. Their relation to concrete reality may range from attempts at exact portraiture to formulæ or diagrams having little more than heuristic significance. Any realistic philosophy of nature must always remember how incomplete and provisional are the theoretical conceptions of any natural science.