THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



from the argument that also all the varied mental 

 and psychical attributes of man, those less varied of 

 the dog, the apparent absence of them in plants and 

 simple forms of animals, all this wide psychological 

 diversity should also shrink to apparent similarity in 

 the protoplasmic cells of all of them^ But Professor 

 Thompson does escape the dilemma, and he does it by 

 accepting one premise and denying the other. He is 

 not a psychologist so he is willing to let God put 

 souls in man and not in plants or in matter; but he is, 

 on the other hand, a biologist and a profound student 

 of the cell, and he desires to explain the cell in terms 

 of physics. So he admits no break between the living 

 and the dead cell, but he does recognize a break be- 

 tween the living and the dead man; in the former 

 there was a soul, in the latter there is none. 



In a most interesting symposium on this very sub- 

 ject, Dr. Haldane proposes and defends the thesis: 

 "That, for the three several sciences, or disciplines, of 

 physics, biology, and psychology, the general concep- 

 tions with which we should approach them, the cate- 

 gories by which it behoves us to interpret them, are 

 essentially different, incompatible, irreconcilable, ir- 

 reducible."^^ Dr. Thompson replies to this thesis : "At 

 once and willingly, I grant the point as regards psy- 

 chology. That matter and mind are incommensur- 



'^^ Life and Finite Individuality. Two Symposia. Edited by H. Wil- 

 don Carr, Williams and Norgate, London, 1918, p. 30. Those who 

 are interested in this subject are strongly advised to read this most 

 important discussion. 



1:2803 



