By request from At, here's part of a message I sent to him:
I recently found another early reference to wholeness in a scientific
context. I was reading John Steinbeck's "The Log from the Sea of Cortez",
which is the narrative part of a book that he wrote with his close friend,
the marine biologist Ed Ricketts.
In the introduction to the book, it's mentioned that both Steinbeck and
Ricketts were strongly influenced by William Emerson Ritter, "whose
doctrine of the oranismal conception of life formed the zeitgeist of the
Berkeley bioligical sciences faculty at the time. ... Ritter believed that
'in all parts of nature and in nature itself as one gigantic whole, wholes
are so related to their parts that not only does the existence of the
whole depend on the orderly co-operation and interdependence of the parts,
but the whole exercises a measure of determinative control over its
parts.' This notion of 'wholeness' is inherent in every unit of existence,
claimed Ritter, since each living unit is a unique whole, the parts of
which 'contribute their proper share to the structure and the functioning
of the whole.' Ritter believed that since 'one's ability to construct his
own nature from portions of nature in general is a basic fact of his
reality, man is capable of understanding the organismal unity of life, and
as a result, can know himself more fully.' This, says Ritter, is 'man's
supreme glory -- not only that he can know the world, but can know himself
as a knower of the world.'"
The bibliography gives a couple of works by Ritter: "The Unity of the
Organism, or the Organismal Conception" (Boston: Gorham Press, 1919), and
"The Organismal Conception: Its Place in Science and Its Bearing on
Philosophy" (with Edna W. Bailey, Berkeley: University of California
Publications in Zoology, 1931).
It looks like Ritter was a contemporary of Smuts, although I've found no
indication that he was aware of Smuts' ideas. Again, two people, a world
apart geographically, but so close in conception.
Incidentally, my discovery of Ritter is one of those coincidences that
Andrew would love. I was visiting in San Diego, and wandered into a
remaindered book store, where I saw this book. I've always wanted to
visit the Sea of Cortez (so near and yet so far...), and I've always liked
Steinbeck, so it was a natural fit. Glancing through the introduction, I
came on a paragraph about Ritter and wholeness, and of course had to buy
it.
Best to all in our little commons on a muggy July day,
--Don Dwiggins d.l.dwiggins@computer.org Man ascends through the discovery of the fullness of his own gifts. What he creates along the way are monuments to the stages of his understanding of nature and of self. -- Jacob Bronowski, "The Ascent of Man"
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