The Directiveness of Organic Activities

Abstract

DR. RUSSELL'S book is concerned to establish "the conclusion that directiveness and creative-ness are fundamental characteristics of life, shared by no inorganic system; that they are not to be explained in terms of mechanism or of purpose; that human directiveness or purposiveness in thought and action are a specialised development of the directiveness and creativeness inherent in life" (p. 178). Its purpose is primarily philosophical, to develop a mode of approach to the problems of biology. However, its method, perhaps wisely, is not dialectical; instead of presenting a close train of argument, Dr. Russell indicates, by descriptions of actual examples, what he means by "direetiveness". Look, he says, at this regenerating natworm or developing egg; naively beheld, they cannot but seem to strive towards a well-recognized completeness, which is their goal. Consider again the ability of rats to choose, from an array of purified substances, just those which together make up a perfect diet; or the fact that a rabbit, which reacts to a loss of blood by rapidly making more, and to the transfusion of extra blood by getting rid of the excess, nevertheless does neither of these when the loss is rapidly followed by a transfusion; is it not clear, Dr. Russell asks, that it is the need of the organism, rather than any mere physico-chemical stimulus, which determines the animal's behaviour?

The Directiveness of Organic Activities

By Dr. E. S. Russell. Pp. viii + 196. (Cambridge:At the University Press, 1945.) 8s. 6d. net.