An Introduction to a Biology 



other animals. His knowledge of the form of man 

 is derived from corpses ; and he investigates his 

 performances on the assumption that the human 

 body is a machine. His attention has been con- 

 fined to just those attributes of man which can 

 be studied in the same way as those of non-human 

 animals. 



This detached, objective method is perhaps the 

 way to establish a science of human physiology 

 and anatomy which shall be useful in the practical 

 science of medicine ; but as long as the biologist 

 persists in studying man in the same impersonal 

 way as that in which he studies the other animals, 

 so long will he shut out of his field of inquiry a 

 whole set of vital phenomena. And the manifesta- 

 tions of life thus excluded from investigation are 

 just those which, in my opinion, most deserve the 

 close attention of the biologist at the present time. 



The eye of the biologist has ever been turned 

 outwards to the pageant of living things by which 

 he is surrounded. He has forgotten that though 

 he is a spectator, and probably the only spectator 

 endowed with intelligent curiosity, he is also a 

 performer in this pageant. 



It is my belief that, so far from excluding from 

 the sphere of inquiry those manifestations of life 

 which can only be studied in man, we should give 

 them a position in the full limelight of our interest. 

 No biology can lay claim to completeness which 

 leaves out of account such essential manifestations 

 of life as human invention, self-expression through 

 painting, poetry, or music, activities and aspirations 

 which constitute the very life which each one of 



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