VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE 635 



of things and creatures that we call Nature. We know, in- 

 deed, that the system in its subjective expression is of Man's 

 making; we know also that Man was made by the system. 

 This is a familiar riddle. Needless to say, however, the 

 system cannot mean to us a mindless kaleidoscope, for by no 

 jugglery can one evolve mind out of anything else. But 

 keeping to the common-sense view that Man is of a piece 

 with a real external Nature, though transcending it when 

 he will, we are concerned to point out that Nature is not 

 altogether so foreign to Man as is continually insinuated. 



The highest values for Man are the True, the Beautiful, 

 and the Good ; and it is of interest that there are in Nature 

 features which do in some degree correspond to these. For 

 it is not far-fetched to recognise that there is a rationality 

 in Nature which is there to be discovered or discerned, which 

 is not simply imposed upon Nature by our formulation. In 

 what sense can we speak of a rationality in Nature ? We 

 mean that the system of things is more or less intelligible 

 and explicable, that its relative uniformities can be trusted 

 to, that when we get a grip of things we can make a coherent 

 scientific system of them, which fits in with other parts of 

 our intellectual systematisation. The formulation is some- 

 times premature and forced, but this is discovered in time, 

 for Nature does not humour the inquirer. The Ptolemaic 

 system in astronomy had to yield to the Copernican, that 

 to the Keplerian, that to the Newtonian, and so on, but 

 each advance meant getting nearer the truth, as we know by 

 the increase in consistency on the one hand, and by the 

 increase in the astronomer's power of prediction on the other. 

 This would not be possible did not scientific formulation 

 approximate towards a description of what actually happens. 



That Nature is amenable to scientific formulation dis- 



