48 THE NEW PHYSIOLOGY. 



theories to reality, but reality contains infinitely more 

 than any of our theories will express, and much that is 

 entirely inconsistent with them. All scientific descrip- 

 tion is just like algebra in this respect. Perhaps nothing 

 is harder than to realise this ; and scientific education 

 is sometimes of such a character as to suggest a tacit 

 conspiracy to prevent us from realising it. We are apt 

 to make such assumptions as that there can be no ques- 

 tion as to the absolute reality of space and time, or 

 matter and energy ; and we are accustomed to gigantic 

 amateur philosophical speculations based on such assump- 

 tions. We are prone to think of the doubters as rather 

 ignorant and unpractical persons, who have probably 

 never used a chronometer or theodolite or chemical 

 balance or calorimeter, and have consequently no real 

 idea of the rigid accuracy with which the conceptions of 

 time, space, matter and energy work out in practice, and 

 of how helpless we should be without them. We forget 

 the other side, which is, that it is only in a limited part 

 of our experience that these conceptions help us, and 

 that they are in themselves full of hopeless inconsistencies 

 and difficulties when applied to the total reality of our 

 experience. It is far easier to realise what we think we 

 know than what we are really ignorant of; and it is 

 those who most clearly recognise what we are ignorant 

 of, and who have the faith and courage to do their best 

 to remedy this ignorance, who are the real intellectual 

 leaders. 



The hypothesis that living organisms exist as such, 

 and that their structure and activities are the expression 

 of their existence, has the same defects as other scientific 

 working hypotheses. All that I claim for it is that in 



