118 ORGANISM AND ENVIRONMENT 



manifests itself which entirely transcends our individ- 

 ual personalities, that constitutes our knowledge of 

 God. In the world of duty and knowledge, not in the 

 natural world as such, we find the God whom our 

 fathers have worshipped, and in whose strength they 

 have been of good courage, and faced trouble, danger 

 and death. God is near to us, and not far away. 



The facts of biology lead to the conclusion that the 

 physical and chemical interpretation of the world is 

 fundamentally imperfect, however useful it may be. 

 The biological interpretation is itself similarly imper- 

 fect in view of the facts relating to conscious person- 

 ality. But when we regard the natural world, as it 

 seems to me we ought and must, not as something com- 

 pletely interpreted in the light of existing theory, but 

 as an imperfect interpretation which is the expres- 

 sion of countless centuries of human effort, the natural 

 world becomes part of the world of duty and knowl- 

 edge. Natural science and its applications are the 

 rough-hewing in the spiritual world, and the funda- 

 mental conceptions of each of the natural sciences are 

 the tools, fashioned by human endeavour, with which 

 this rough-hewing is done. Scientific results are in 

 themselves only incomplete and abstract presentations 

 of reality, just as the stones are not part of the build- 

 ing till they are dressed and fitted into place. Other 

 workers do their part in the building, but without the 

 rough-hewing their efforts would be in vain. Biology, 

 for instance, is absolutely dependent on the preliminary 

 work of the physical sciences, just as other more con- 

 crete sciences are dependent on biology. The claim 



