The organic vision of Hélan Jaworski

by which term he sought to indicate that practical verification could be obtained for what might appear at first to be a mere speculation. He used the insights gained from his work in his medical practice, developing specific treatments for various diseases. He maintained that the future would be able to verify his work in practical results.

Prof. Edmond Perrier, in his preface to L’arbre biologique, pays tribute to Dr Jaworski’s scientific knowledge, though Dr Jaworski himself always said that his ideas would appeal to ordinary people and not—in the first place—to professional biologists.

In the whole conception there are so many ideas and different threads to follow that—in one lecture—I can only give you the barest outline. But perhaps I may sum up by underlining the main themes.

First there is the emphasis on Form and Function—movement gives rise to function—as in ingestion—which then gives rise to form. Form and Function are the fundamentals of true biology.

Then we have Dr Jaworski’s conception of the Biological Tree, where he sees the trunk of that tree as the embryology of man. As man’s inner organs are differentiated in the growing trunk, he sees corresponding organisms thrown out—as it were—along the branches to form the animals. In no sense therefore is man the descendant of the animals, but rather that out of developing mankind the different animal orders were successively precipitated. The embryology of man will not be found in the geological record—only forms which have already hardened into skeleton and shell can leave their imprint. The growth of man has been produced by the sacrifice of animals which have specialised along one line of development and allowed man to keep his plasticity and potential for further growth.

Evolution could also be likened to the successive waves of the sea breaking on the shore—each wave bringing with it further organic perfection. The skeletal note first sounded with the radiolaria—taken up in the ‘milk vertebrae’ of the echinodermslost in the worms—perfected further in the next wave which throws up the fishes. Dr Poppelbaum also brings out this aspect in his book A New Zoology where he emphasises the successive