74 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



degradation ? ' We do not know the answer to 

 that question : but it is clearly a legitimate and useful 

 question to ask. In any event, we constatate two 

 chief directions in the universe ; that seen in biology 

 is in many ways opposed to that seen in physics and 

 chemistry ; and both must be taken into account. 



I have spent, I fear, a great deal of time on what 

 will appear to many as very irrelevant prolegomena. 

 But the complete breakdown of the older views 

 about nature and man, of the philosophies and theo- 

 logies based not on observation but on an authority 

 which is no authority, on unverifiable speculation, 

 on superstition, and on what we would like to be so 

 rather than on what happens to be so — the break- 

 down of all the commonly accepted bases for man's 

 view of himself and the universe, has made it necessary 

 to go back to fundamentals if we are to see where 

 we stand. Secondly, the progress of the biological 

 and psychological sciences, as I have already pointed 

 out, has considerably altered the outlook of those 

 who pin their faith to the newer or scientific view 

 of nature, the view which attempts constantly to 

 refer speculations to reality, and to build on founda- 

 tions which have been tested by experiment. 



The orthodox evolutionary view was that phen- 

 omena received in some degree an explanation if 

 their origin from simpler phenomena could be demon- 

 strated. As a matter of fact, reflection makes it 

 clear that such an explanation is never complete. 



