620 THE CONTROL OF LIFE: 



6. Dangers of False Simplicity or Materialism. 



When we turn to the consideration of practical problems, 

 we reap the reward of the time devoted to the discussion 

 of the essential characters of the living organism. The con- 

 clusion that the category ' Mechanism ' requires in Animate 

 Nature to be supplemented by the category ( Organism ', 

 warrants us in carefully scrutinising all proposals which 

 are tarred with the mechanistic or materialistic brush. They 

 are bound to be fallacious in their incompleteness and per- 

 haps also in the clear-cut definiteness which makes false sim- 

 plicity seductive. 



The conclusion that, among the higher animals at least, 

 we have certainly to do with mind-bodies or body-minds, 

 with individualities having at least a rill of inner life, justi- 

 fies us in looking with suspicion at projects which declare 

 the uselessness of the soul. The " false simplicity " error of 

 materialism may be repeated at a higher level in a biologism 

 which leaves out mentality in its account and treatment of 

 a dog, or in a theromorphism which treats men as " bipedal 

 cattle " often of considerable ferocity. 



It is not merely a theoretical question of giving the most 

 accurate description of a dog or a horse or a man, it is 

 also a practical question of making the most and the best 

 of the creature. And in this respect the conclusion of 

 thoughtful experts is unanimous, that the truer conception 

 is also that which works best. 



There are many higher reasons (religious, ethical, artistic, 

 and others) for taking a big view of Man, but what we have 

 been concerned with in this course is to show that the crude 

 view is bad science. When Prof. Jacques Loeb says, " We 

 eat, drink, and reproduce, not because mankind has reached 



