THE LIVING ORGANISM 7 



thinking persons that they can hold in common. The 

 form and method of science are fully set forth by these 

 definitions, and the purpose also is clearly revealed. 

 For the results of investigation are not merely formulae 

 which summarize experience as so much ^^ conceptual 

 shorthand/' as Karl Pearson puts it, but they must 

 serve also to describe what will probably be the orderly 

 workings of nature as future experience unfolds. 

 Human endeavor based upon a knowledge of scientific 

 principles must be far more reliable than where it is 

 guided by mere intuition or unreasoned belief, which may 

 or may not harmonize with the everyday world laws. 

 Just as the law of gravitation based upon past experience 

 provides the bridge builder and the architect with a 

 statement of conditions to be met, so we shall find that 

 the principles of evolution demonstrate the best means 

 of meeting the circumstances of life. 



Evolution has developed, like all sciences, as the 

 method we have described has been employed. Al- 

 chemy became chemistry when the so-called facts of 

 the medievalist were scrutinized and the false were 

 discarded. Astrology was reorganized into astronomy 

 when real facts about the planets and stars were 

 separated from the belief that human lives were in- 

 fluenced by the heavenly bodies. Likewise the science 

 of life has undergone far-reaching changes in coming 

 down to its present form. All the principles of these 

 sciences are complete only in so far as they sum up in 

 the best way the whole range of facts that they describe. 

 They cannot be final until all that can be known is 

 known, until the end of all knowledge and of time. 

 It is because he feels so sure of what has been gained 



