Problem of Organic Form

Among the world's leading botanists, Edmund Sinnott specialized in the morphology (physical form) of vascular plants. He was particularly interested in problems of biological philosophy. In The Biology of the Spirit, his main thesis is that "protoplasm, the basic stuff of plants and animal life, has a biological purpose." In human beings, this "goal-seeking" protoplasm, which seems to direct human motivation, is an extension of a universal reality---"God" ("Spirit," "Force," or "Personality"). In Matter, Mind and Man, Sinnott provides answers to the perennial questions that human beings ask about themselves and the world to form a unified and logically harmonious framework of concepts about our relationship to life and to the universe. "Our aim," he writes, "has been to fit man into the universe of matter, mind, and spirit without the necessity of dismembering him." He claimed that "only in God can man be fulfilled" (Saturday Review). Sinnott is the author of many textbooks. 020