I FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS 7 



cepts and new points of view. It will not help merely to 

 accumulate details of which, even in the special departments 

 of the separate biological sciences, the masses are already 

 becoming more than any individual mind can bear. New 

 co-ordinations are required, new syntheses which will sum 

 up and explain and illuminate the otherwise amorphous 

 masses of material. While research is being prosecuted as 

 never before, while in biological science great, and in the 

 physical sciences unprecedented, progress is being recorded, 

 the call becomes ever more urgent for a reconsideration of 

 fundamental concepts and the discovery of new standpoints 

 which might lead to the formulation of more general prin- 

 ciples and wider generalisations. Nowhere are new view- 

 points more urgently called for than in respect of the 

 fundamental concepts of matter, life, and mind, of which the 

 reform is overdue and the present state is rapidly becoming a 

 real obstacle to further progress. And I may point out that 

 the formulation of new view-points will depend not so much 

 on masses of minute details, as on the consideration of the 

 general principles in the light of recent advances, the colla- 

 tion and comparison of large masses of fact, and the survey 

 of fairly large areas of knowledge. The road is to be dis- 

 covered, not so much by minute local inspection as by wide 

 roaming and exploration and surveying over large districts. 

 Both methods are needed, and the question narrows itself 

 down to one of comparative values. Just as in the cases of 

 Newton and Einstein, the new clues are more likely to be 

 indicated by certain crucial dominant facts than by small 

 increments of research. It would therefore be a great mis- 

 take to let the completion of present detailed researches take 

 precedence over the more general and urgent questions to 

 which I am drawing attention. 



Let me mention one matter of crucial significance to which 

 I think sufficient importance has not yet been attached. 

 To-day I think it is generally accepted that life has in the 

 process of cosmic Evolution developed from or in the bosom 

 of matter, and that mind itself has its inalienable physical 

 basis. I do not think that among those who have given 



