18 FACTORS IX VARIATIOX. 



Biological workers have gone far be^-ond the portal* 

 of the great domain of knowledge. We realise a 

 prodigious diversity of forms, living and extinct, ranging 

 from the commonplace to the gi-otesque and to the 

 beautiful, and varying in attributes from the malignant 

 to the beneficent, A globule of fluid, seen under the 

 microscope, may reveal a multitude of deadl}- bacteria. 

 A tiny fragment of some organism may exhibit a complex 

 structure of marvellous beauty. " Whence this process 

 . . . ? To what end ? " asked Herbert Spencer, at 

 the close of a life spent in searching for truth. And the 

 adequate answer is yet to be given. We dare not 

 dogmatise. Man gropes from the known to the unknown, 

 from the measurable to the unmeasured. It is high task 

 of scientific workers to win here and there definitely 

 recorded facts of natiu-e, as the years go b3^ and our hope^ 

 is that the conquests of the future will bring a far wider- 

 knowledge within the purview of the mind of man. 



