40 WHAT IS LIFE 



established by laboratory test, cannot legitimately 

 be used as an objection to the theory, inasmuch as 

 it is one of the outstanding features of the theory 

 that it, for the first time, shows the problem of life 

 to be amenable to laboratory test. 



Awaiting decisive laboratory test, it may not be 

 forgotten or ignored that it has not been known to 

 happen that a theory, unless it answers to the facts, 

 can serve as a key to the easy solution of various 

 and most diverse difficult problems. 



The theory concerns a subject that is of universal 

 and transcendent interest — life; and it is approached 

 and discussed from many angles. Therefore it may 

 not be amiss to emphasize the following: 



1. The author has built exclusively with or upon 

 the established facts of experiment and observation. 



2. Judgment of the merits of the theory, it ob- 

 viously follows, must be based solely on the same 

 sets of facts. 



No other inquiry has larger philosophical impor- 

 tance than the inquiry concerning life, since the over- 

 shadowing problem of human life necessarily is 

 included in the general problem of life. One may say 

 that the chief value of the inquiry into life indeed lies 

 in its philosophical import, its contribution to philo- 

 sophic thought. For many would say with Karl 

 Pearson: "I am afraid I am a scientific heretic .... 



