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332 THEORETICAL BIOLOGY 



a serious attempt to manage without any amateurish acces- 

 sories. It has a firm mechanico-physical basis, which it 

 has expanded in a remarkable way, and it scorns to borrow 

 insecure support from psychology and the doctrine of 

 adaptation. 



Unfortunately Loeb gives his case away, as soon as he 

 comes to speak of the human soul, the activity of which 

 he undertakes to explain through the chemical processes of 

 the brain. If he repels the encroachments of the psy- 

 chologists in explaining the mechanics of the body, the 

 psychologists have equal right to set aside as amateurish his 

 mechanical explanation of the life of the mind. Even if we 

 recognise law and order in the life of the mind, and so speak 

 of an organisation of the soul, there are no mechanics of the 

 soul or the mind. Loeb's attempt to ascribe to an acidifying 

 in the brain the appearance of an idea in the human spirit 

 is positively grotesque, although it is not actually less in accord 

 with the facts than is the statement that the writhing of an 

 earthworm trodden under foot is caused by its pain. 



THE SENSED-WORLDS OF HUMAN BEINGS 



If we wish to apply to human beings what we have learnt 

 from biological consideration of animals, it is of the first 

 importance to choose the right standpoint, permitting us to 

 view not merely human beings themselves, but also their 

 surrounding-worlds . 



If we mount up in a captive baUoon, human beings at 

 first recede from us, and then, at a certain point, this changes 

 into their reduction in size. They seem nearer to us again, 

 but very much smaller. Let us choose the moment when 

 they have assumed the size of a laige insect, such as a dragon- 

 fly or a grasshopper. Now at our leisure let us consider these 

 little creatures which occupy but a tiny action-circle in the 



