Chapter I 

 INTRODUCTION 



In the whole gamut of human thought, there 

 is perhaps no question that crops up more fre- 

 quently in one form or another than that which 

 asks ''By what means do the myriads of different 

 forms and processes which we see in the Universe 

 around us come into being, what controls them 

 within normal metes and bounds, and how does 

 it come about that those 'normal' bounds are occa- 

 sionally transcended, so often with disastrous 

 results? What is it that brings about and main- 

 tains the extraordinary harmony which we usually 

 find in Nature, yet from time to time alters that 

 harmony by what appear to us to be transgres- 

 sions ! " If we knew the full answers to the mul- 

 titudinous variants of this question, there would 

 be very little left worth inquiring about. 



For this question does have a multitude of 

 variants. It is asked at all sorts of different 

 levels of human experience. At the cosmic level 

 it becomes the question of creation itself. The 

 psychologist asks it at the level of human thought 



