first edition cloth binding
1914 · London
by Driesch, Hans
London: Macmillan & Co., 1914. First edition.
ENDING THE BELIEF IN ORGANISMS AS MACHINES: DRIESCH'S SYNTHESIS OF HIS CONCEPT OF VITALISM.
13.5x22 cm hardcover, red cloth binding, gilt title to spine, i-ix, 84 pp, 4 pp publisher's advertisements. Light sunning to spine, tiny ink signature of previous owner top of front free endpaper, browning to endpapers, unmarked and very good in custom archival mylar cover.
HANS DRIESCH (1867 – 1941) began to study medicine in 1886 under August Weismann at the University of Freiburg. In 1887 he attended the University of Jena under Ernst Haeckel, Oscar Hertwig and Christian Ernst Stahl. In 1888 he studied physics and chemistry at the University of Munich. He received his doctorate in 1889. From 1891 Driesch worked in Naples at the Marine Biological Station, where until 1901 he continued to experiment and seek a theoretical formulation of his results. As recounted in his book. The Science and Philosophy of the Organism, Driesch went on to manipulate the early cell divisions of the sea urchin in various ways and always obtained an entirely formed organism. In addition, he fused together two sea urchin eggs at the later blastula stage and produced a single giant organism from this fusion, rather than Siamese twins. … as of the body need not be identical with its possible fate in the sense that "there are more morphogenetic possibilities contained in each embryonic part than are actually realized in a special morphogenetic case." Thus, "there are more morphogenetic possibilities contained in each part than the observation of the normal development can reveal." From 1891 Driesch worked in Naples at the Marine Biological Station, where until 1900 he continued to experiment and seek a theoretical formulation of his results. He enquired into classical and modern philosophy in his search for an adequate theoretical overview and ended by adopting an Aristotlean teleological theory of entelechy. Under the influence of his teacher Haeckel, Driesch had tested the mechanistic embryological theories of another of Haeckel's students, Wilhelm Roux. By 1895 Driesch's experiments on the sea urchin embryo suggested that it was possible to remove large pieces from eggs, shuffle the blastomeres and interfere in many ways without affecting the resulting embryo. It appeared that any single monad in the original egg cell was capable of forming any part of the completed embryo. This important refutation of both preformation and the mosaic theory of Wilhelm Roux was to be subject to much discussion in the ensuing years, and caused friction among Driesch, Roux and Haeckel. Writing in 2002, the co-founder of modern evolutionary synthesis, Ernst Mayr, acclaimed, 'When one reads the writing of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch, one is forced to agree with him'. Mayr pointed out that Hans Driesch, biologist, philosopher, theologian, was one of the central figures who helped end the belief in organisms as machines. Vitalism, the views of which Driesch articulated, understood that nuclear division and embryo development cannot solely be accounted for by physiochemical processes. There must be a self-determining force, a vital spark. eventually, the search would lead to genetics. In his work on sea urchins, dividing cells of the embryo after the first cell-division, he expected each cell to develop into the corresponding half of the animal to which it has been destined or preprogrammed, but instead found that each developed into a complete sea urchin. This also happened at the four-cell stage: entire larvae ensued from each of the four cells, albeit smaller than usual. Driesch's findings brought about the adoption of the terms "totipotent" and "pluripotent" cell, referring respectively to a cell that can generate every cell in an organism and one that can generate nearly every cell. Driesch's results were confirmed with greater precision by Hans Spemann. Cited by Harmen and Dietrich: Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology: "On the embryological front, Driesch concluded that development occurred with such regularity, and in the case of the sea urchin proceeded toward an appointed end despite all sorts of introduced disturbances, that it must be guided by a teleological force that had no counterpart in the mechanical or physico-chemical world.'. This force he called entelechy, a term borrowed from Aristotle and referring to an "active principle of converting possibility into actuality. … Entelechy was thus not the blueprint of an organism's organization nor the creative agent that brings it about, but a kind of a mediator similar to a homeostatic governor, that protects the tendency system from being disrupted by extraneous factors (including embryologist's experiments). ... From the principle of teleology and its specific embryological form, entelechy, Driesch moved on to advocate an openly vitalistic philosophy of biology. It was first made manifest in Driesch's Gifford Lectures, delivered at the University of Aberdeen in 1907-1908 and Published as The Science and Philosophy of the Organism in 1908. A distillation of these ideas published six years later (1914) as The Problem of Individuality (offered here) will serve as the framework for explicating Driesch's line of argument in favor of vitalism. ... So influential had Driesch's ideas become in biological circles, however, that as late as 1942 the embryologist Joseph Needham felt compelled to insert a whole section (2.16) in his Biochemistry and Morphogenesis to attacking the doctrine of vitalism." (Inventory #: 1626)
ENDING THE BELIEF IN ORGANISMS AS MACHINES: DRIESCH'S SYNTHESIS OF HIS CONCEPT OF VITALISM.
13.5x22 cm hardcover, red cloth binding, gilt title to spine, i-ix, 84 pp, 4 pp publisher's advertisements. Light sunning to spine, tiny ink signature of previous owner top of front free endpaper, browning to endpapers, unmarked and very good in custom archival mylar cover.
HANS DRIESCH (1867 – 1941) began to study medicine in 1886 under August Weismann at the University of Freiburg. In 1887 he attended the University of Jena under Ernst Haeckel, Oscar Hertwig and Christian Ernst Stahl. In 1888 he studied physics and chemistry at the University of Munich. He received his doctorate in 1889. From 1891 Driesch worked in Naples at the Marine Biological Station, where until 1901 he continued to experiment and seek a theoretical formulation of his results. As recounted in his book. The Science and Philosophy of the Organism, Driesch went on to manipulate the early cell divisions of the sea urchin in various ways and always obtained an entirely formed organism. In addition, he fused together two sea urchin eggs at the later blastula stage and produced a single giant organism from this fusion, rather than Siamese twins. … as of the body need not be identical with its possible fate in the sense that "there are more morphogenetic possibilities contained in each embryonic part than are actually realized in a special morphogenetic case." Thus, "there are more morphogenetic possibilities contained in each part than the observation of the normal development can reveal." From 1891 Driesch worked in Naples at the Marine Biological Station, where until 1900 he continued to experiment and seek a theoretical formulation of his results. He enquired into classical and modern philosophy in his search for an adequate theoretical overview and ended by adopting an Aristotlean teleological theory of entelechy. Under the influence of his teacher Haeckel, Driesch had tested the mechanistic embryological theories of another of Haeckel's students, Wilhelm Roux. By 1895 Driesch's experiments on the sea urchin embryo suggested that it was possible to remove large pieces from eggs, shuffle the blastomeres and interfere in many ways without affecting the resulting embryo. It appeared that any single monad in the original egg cell was capable of forming any part of the completed embryo. This important refutation of both preformation and the mosaic theory of Wilhelm Roux was to be subject to much discussion in the ensuing years, and caused friction among Driesch, Roux and Haeckel. Writing in 2002, the co-founder of modern evolutionary synthesis, Ernst Mayr, acclaimed, 'When one reads the writing of one of the leading vitalists like Driesch, one is forced to agree with him'. Mayr pointed out that Hans Driesch, biologist, philosopher, theologian, was one of the central figures who helped end the belief in organisms as machines. Vitalism, the views of which Driesch articulated, understood that nuclear division and embryo development cannot solely be accounted for by physiochemical processes. There must be a self-determining force, a vital spark. eventually, the search would lead to genetics. In his work on sea urchins, dividing cells of the embryo after the first cell-division, he expected each cell to develop into the corresponding half of the animal to which it has been destined or preprogrammed, but instead found that each developed into a complete sea urchin. This also happened at the four-cell stage: entire larvae ensued from each of the four cells, albeit smaller than usual. Driesch's findings brought about the adoption of the terms "totipotent" and "pluripotent" cell, referring respectively to a cell that can generate every cell in an organism and one that can generate nearly every cell. Driesch's results were confirmed with greater precision by Hans Spemann. Cited by Harmen and Dietrich: Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology: "On the embryological front, Driesch concluded that development occurred with such regularity, and in the case of the sea urchin proceeded toward an appointed end despite all sorts of introduced disturbances, that it must be guided by a teleological force that had no counterpart in the mechanical or physico-chemical world.'. This force he called entelechy, a term borrowed from Aristotle and referring to an "active principle of converting possibility into actuality. … Entelechy was thus not the blueprint of an organism's organization nor the creative agent that brings it about, but a kind of a mediator similar to a homeostatic governor, that protects the tendency system from being disrupted by extraneous factors (including embryologist's experiments). ... From the principle of teleology and its specific embryological form, entelechy, Driesch moved on to advocate an openly vitalistic philosophy of biology. It was first made manifest in Driesch's Gifford Lectures, delivered at the University of Aberdeen in 1907-1908 and Published as The Science and Philosophy of the Organism in 1908. A distillation of these ideas published six years later (1914) as The Problem of Individuality (offered here) will serve as the framework for explicating Driesch's line of argument in favor of vitalism. ... So influential had Driesch's ideas become in biological circles, however, that as late as 1942 the embryologist Joseph Needham felt compelled to insert a whole section (2.16) in his Biochemistry and Morphogenesis to attacking the doctrine of vitalism." (Inventory #: 1626)
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