336 THEORETICAL BIOLOGY 



indications. The world of most people whose calling does 

 not oblige them to pay regard to Nature, is hopelessly im- 

 poverished. Instead of the thousand different plants and 

 animals, we see a deadly, monotonous repetition of the same 

 tree with the same indications of " green " and " high," and 

 among animals even the dog and the horse are scarcely dis- 

 tinguishable as regards their indications. Almost every- 

 thing else is simply and monotonously " animal." It is not 

 surprising that landscapes differ from one another merely 

 quantitatively. The most famous view-points are always 

 those from which one can see " as much as possible." We 

 are able to see " many " mountains or " many " rivers, it is 

 true ; but fundamentally they all look alike. 



If we look into the worlds-as-sensed of the pygmies that 

 tear through the world in motor-cars, we find, with the excep- 

 tion of indications for the hotels, scarcely any by the aid 

 of which we could distinguish between towns or between 

 landscapes. 



Such people, dwelling in the most dreadful wilderness, 



where only a few of the commonest objects repeat them- 



/ selves again and again ad nauseam, are called " rich," as 



though in mockery ; although in comparison with any peasant 



or shepherd, they are as poor as beggars. 



This regrettable laying-waste of the worlds-as-sensed has 

 really arisen from the superstition started by the physicists, 

 which would induce each person to consider as the universe his 

 own small and often inferior sensed-world, a universe composed 

 of nothing but points revolving round one another without plan. 



The physicists have a good reason for spreading this belief. 

 What would become of their indestructible continuity of 

 the world as a whole, if once it were understood that the 

 millions of worlds-as-sensed are completely independent, each 

 with its heaven, its stars and its sun ? These innumerable 

 firmaments have no physical influence on one another. The 



