An Introduction to a Biology 



phenomenon, can " discover " there two profoundly 

 different laws to explain it, seems to me to prove 

 pretty conclusively that these laws are not de- 

 tected underneath the phenomenon but projected 

 below it by the men themselves. What a man 

 sees below the surface when he looks down the Holy 

 Well into the waters of Life is not the bottom of 

 the well, but a picture of himself. 



There is another reason why laws should have 

 flown out from the mind to the nether side of pheno- 

 mena. The savage's interpretation of the Universe 

 endowed everything — ^river, tree, and storm — with 

 souls, and ascribed the form and the performance of 

 these to the nature and activity of their souls. As 

 this interpretation came gradually to be discarded in 

 favour of " scientific " explanations of things, a void 

 was left behind the pageant of phenomena ; and to 

 this void it was natural that the new explanations 

 of things should be drawn. 



So that when we feel inclined to congratulate 

 ourselves on our emancipation from the crudities 

 of an animistic interpretation of the Universe, we 

 should ask ourselves whether in fact we have done 

 any more than hand over the government of the 

 Universe from a hierarchy of spirits and demons 

 to one of principles and laws. Very little more, 

 so far as life is concerned, I venture to think. Many 

 an innovation in the past has been no more than 

 the calling of an old thing by a new name. 



§5 



If there is a possibility that words may give a 

 semblance of progress in interpretation, where in 



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