44Q SCIENCE PROGRESS 



The next quotation from Dr. Haldane on which comment 

 may be made is this : " In the argument that all the conscious 

 behaviour of a man or animal is ultimately dependent on 

 physical and chemical stimuli from the environment, acting on 

 the physical and chemical structure of the body, the whole 

 question is begged from the outset ; for the assumed physical 

 stimuli and physical structure do not behave as such." I do not 

 understand how the term " behaviour" can be applied to stimuli 

 or structures : still less, as here alleged, how either a stimulus 

 or a structure can behave as though it were neither a stimulus 

 nor a structure but as something else — a ghost, no doubt. But 

 in any case, we may ask for further information as to how 

 the question is begged in arguing that conscious behaviour is 

 dependent on physical stimuli. That proposition may be either 

 true or untrue ; but it is perfectly clear and straightforward 

 itself and begs nothing. Dr. Haldane's whole attitude is meta- 

 physical. Metaphysical questions may possibly here be begged : 

 I do not know whether they are and I certainly do not care. 

 Science will not stop, merely because ghostly questions are 

 begged ! " The great mistake of mechanism," says Dr. Haldane, 

 "is to lose sight of the wider point of view which shows us 

 that in physical or indeed any scientific investigation we are 

 always dealing with partial aspects of reality." Since this 

 mistake is common to mechanism as well as every other 

 scientific theory, I suppose that mechanism, if proved, would 

 have the same sort of validity as other scientific truths : and 

 that is all we want. But the general type of the argument is 

 unsatisfactory : it is meeting a scientific theory with a meta- 

 physical refutation. If the scientific theory be untrue, it is 

 surely susceptible of a scientific refutation or criticism, at all 

 events. And so we go on : " Conscious personality is the truth 

 of the body and its environment." I have no idea what this 

 sentence means : nor how the body can have a truth. But 

 things get worse and worse: "Just as biological facts have 

 taught us that the life of each individual cell or organism is 

 only part of a wider life, so have ethical and religious facts 

 shown that the individual personality in its full realisation is 

 the expression of divine personality, which alone can be the 

 ultimate truth of all existence." If this is intended as hostile 

 to mechanism, it surely is the weakest of arguments. That the 

 divine personality is the truth of existence is the sort of thing 



