10 MAN, — THE ANIMAL 



wait until man has made much greater progress in 

 developing methods of studying protoplasm. 



We may, therefore, say that the problem of the 

 origin of life and the problems centering around 

 the origin and transformation of genera are not 

 distinctively human questions but that they belong 

 to all forms of life. All that we can do about these 

 and similar problems in the present state of our 

 knowledge is to speculate concerning them. This 

 is a method of discussion which really eliminates 

 them from a purely scientific treatise. For this 

 reason we shall omit all further reference to them 

 as any scientific treatise must do until as a result 

 of extended experimentation and analysis they are 

 solved. 



While we all regret that some of the most 

 interesting problems of protoplasm remain un- 

 solved, yet this does not prevent us from taking 

 advantage of the great generalizations that have 

 been discovered. Our first observation is that 

 none of these basic laws of life is limited to man; 

 and our second is, that none of them excludes man. 

 There can be but one conclusion: our understand- 

 ing of them is indispensable, if we would under- 

 stand man. 



Our first task, then, will be to phrase the laws 

 of living protoplasm; then we shall examine these 

 laws in some detail and indicate their significance 

 as the basis for man's education. Our conception 



