76 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



Is it not possible that this great generalization only 

 applies to phenomena in their purely material aspect, 

 and that when we learn to detect and measure the 

 mental aspects of phenomena we may fmd reason 

 to modify the universal applicability of this law of 

 degradation?" We do not know the answer to that 

 question: but it is clearly a legitimate and useful 

 question to ask. In any event, we constatate two 

 chief directions in the universe; that seen in biology 

 is in many ways opposed to that seen in physics and 

 chemistry; and both must be taken into account. 



I have spent, I fear, a great deal of time on what 

 will appear to many as very irrelevant prolegomena. 

 But the complete breakdown of the older views about 

 nature and man, of the philosophies and theologies 

 based not on observation but on an authority 'which 

 is no authority, on unverifiable speculation, on su- 

 perstition, and on what we would like to be so rather 

 than on what happens to be so — the breakdown of 

 all the commonly accepted basis for ipan's view of 

 himself and the universe, has made it necessary to 

 go back to fundamentals if we are to see where we 

 stand. Secondly, the progress of the biological and 

 psychological sciences, as I have already pointed 

 out, has considerably altered the outlook of those 

 who pin their faith to the newer or scientific view 

 of nature, the view which attempts constantly to 

 refer speculations to reality, and to build on founda- 

 tions which have been tested by experiment. 



The orthodox evolutionary view was that phe- 



