xii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 



As it was, the manner of his education was such as to 

 minister conjointly to both sides of his nature, to foster in 

 him the man of science and the philosopher at once and 

 together. 



The Oxford School of Literae Humaniores is sometimes 

 accused of trying to be all things to all men ; and this 

 impeachment is perhaps best met by the plea that such 

 a policy would seem to answer. Here was a man who in 

 his first term of * Greats ' attended biological courses at the 

 Museum, and that with his tutor's blessing. As all roads 

 lead to Rome, so every intellectual avenue might be held to 

 lead to philosophy. And thus it turned out with Jenkinson. 

 He might devote time that he could ill spare to those special 

 problems of biology which were to mean so much for him in 

 after life. He might even be so deeply impressed by the need 

 in that context of empirical methods, of a reasoning resting 

 solidly on observation and experiment, as to be unduly 

 suspicious of the dialectical flights to which philosophy is 

 prone. But a mind so broad and so thorough could not 

 ignore the further issues which the biological theory of 

 development involves. How Becoming in general is related 

 to Being was the question that soon dominated his attention, 

 in those early years when he was still finding himself, still 

 seeking to evolve a sense of cosmic direction. 



There was a College society, then in its heyday, which met 

 for purposes of philosophical discussion. Jenkinson was one 

 of the leading spirits in it. He had not yet, it is true, 

 acquired that power of lucid utterance which was afterwards 

 to make him one of the most impressive of University 

 lecturers. But his very earnestness brought him to the front 

 in these youthful debates. In the myriad processes of life 

 which it was his passion to study he divined the workings of 

 law. The organic world was for him no welter of aimlessly 

 competing forms, chance-begun and chance-ended. Somehow 

 there must be determination towards an end, a movement 



