In a very interesting lecture to the Middlesex Hospital Medical
School, on Tuesday,. Dr. Haldane criticized the materialistic theory of life. The mechanistic view, ha stated, was predominant in the middle of last century and still influences some branches of science, rather to the obstruction of their progress. Physical science itself has moved towards a more spiritual conception arising out of a relative view of Nature. The persistence of identity which characterizes a living organism is not a persistence of its material body, nor of the energy which it expresses, but rather of the relationship between the organism and its environment. Life is inclusive of the action of the environment as well as that of the organism. Here the argument seems to run parallel with the relativity theory of gravitation. And, indeed, it is the influence of the general theory of relativity which is making itself felt throughout all branches of science. Physics, the firmest stronghold of materialism, has fallen before the necessity of free undeterminate conceptions. Therefore biology, further along the line, must surely capitulate, and develop still more in the direction of a theory of spiritual activity.
Previous page
