X Preface 



nature; if, in other words, he becomes convinced that the 

 whole of nature is, indeed, and not in mere expression, a 

 system, the conviction will carry with it the perception that 

 all specialized natural knowledge is absolutely dependent for 

 meaning on the relation it has to its appropriate larger body 

 of knowledge. Either analytic knowledge or synthetic knowl- 

 edge of nature would be wholly void of meaning were it to 

 be completely wrenched from the other. Most men of 

 science perhaps, and most philosophers probably, would ad- 

 mit that this is true as an abstract proposition. But what 

 about its truth when brought to the test of particular cases? 



The audacity of my enterprise really consists in my at- 

 tempting to act according to this general truth in a par- 

 ticular case — the case, that is, of the phenomena of animal 

 life. I have gone on the assumption that knowledge of 

 animal chemistry, for example, at one extreme, and of 

 human consciousness at the other, would be simple blanks as 

 to meaning but for the relation of the two knowledges to 

 each other and to still more general knowledge of animal 

 life. Could we imagine a chimpanzee possessed of as much 

 laboratory knowledge of organic chemistry as an Emil 

 Fischer, that knowledge would be really meaningless were 

 the creature's mind that of a chimpanzee in all other re- 

 spects. 



A systematic defense of a conception of zoology based on 

 a general theory of natural knowledge such as this, can not, 

 of course, be thought of in a preface. Indeed, such a con- 

 ception can not be fully justified by any argument merely 

 for it. The justification must be found largely in a worked- 

 out application of the conception itself. In other words, the 

 very fabric of this book must be the chief justification 

 sought. All I can wish to do in a preface is to mention 

 certain subsidiary ideas and principles that have been spe- 

 cially influential in determining the plans of my undertaking; 

 and certain methods and disciplinary preparations and pres- 



