An Introduction to a Biology 



The truth of my contention that biological laws 

 really exist in our own mind, and not in the world 

 outside, governing phenomena and awaiting dis- 

 covery, is capable of a simple demonstration. If 

 the discovery of these laws really were a detection 

 of the principles underlying phenomena, as the 

 conventional phrase is, and if the deeper we probed 

 the more closely did we approach to fundamental 

 principles, then the deeper we probed the more 

 closely should we agree with one another. The 

 very reverse is demonstrably the case. Our agree- 

 ment is not directly, but inversely proportional to 

 the depth to which we probe. The truth as it 

 appears to me is, that we are not really burrowing 

 under phenomena at all. We invent laws in our 

 minds about phenomena. Then, looking the other 

 way — i.e. not at our minds — we allow these laws 

 to escape to the other side of, or underneath, the 

 crust of phenomena. And then we experience the 

 thrill of thinking that we have discovered these 

 laws underlying phenomena. The reason that the 

 deeper we probe the more do we disagree, is that 

 the laws that we think we find down there, but 

 really project there, are the products of our minds ; 

 nay, almost the portraits of ourselves ; for the truest 

 portrait of a man is his conception, or theory, of 

 life. If it be asked why there are not as many laws 

 of, say, heredity as there are men who are interested 

 in it, the answer is that the great majority of these 

 men are content to take their laws secondhand from 

 other men. 



In a word, the fact that two men looking, as they 

 believe, below the surface of one and the same 



