8 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



system themselves, and that there are no features in them 

 which impel our categorical Ego to further analysis. 



Those of you who attended Professor Ward's lectures 

 on " Naturalism and Agnosticism," or who have read his 

 excellent book on that subject, will know what the aims of 

 a theory of matter are. You will also be aware that, at 

 present, there does not exist any theory of matter which 

 can claim to be " true " ; there are contradictions in every 

 theory of matter, and, moreover, there are always some 

 points where we are obliged to ask for farther information 

 and receive no answer. Experience here has not yet 

 aroused all the categorical functions which are needed in 

 order to form one unity out of what seem to be incom- 

 patibilities at the present day. Why is that ? Maybe 

 because experience is not yet complete in this field, but 

 maybe also because the whole subject is so complicated 

 that it takes much time to attach categorical functions to 

 what is experienced. 



But it is not our object here to deal either with 

 epistemology proper or with ontology : a full analysis of 

 biological facts is our problem. Why, then, all these 

 introductions ? why all these philosophical sketches in 

 fields of knowledge which have quite another relation to 

 philosophy than biology has ? Biology, I hear some one 

 say, is simply and solely an empirical science ; in some 

 sense it is nothing but applied physics and chemistry, 

 perhaps applied mechanics. There are no fundamental 

 principles in biology which could bring it in any close 

 contact with philosophy. Even the one and only principle 

 which might seem to be an innate principle of our 

 experience about life, the principle of evolution, is only a 



