192 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



If we were near the surface we should find that 

 the outer beings always arranged themselves in a 

 special and coherent layer, apparently to protect 

 themselves against the machinations of the different 

 beings inhabiting the region beyond ; for every now 

 and again one would seem to be pulled from the water 

 and be lost among the more scattered inhabitants of 

 the air. 



If we could now revert to our old size, we might 

 remember, as we listened to the scientist enunciating 

 the simple formulae of the gas-laws, or giving numerical 

 expression to vapour-pressures and solubilities, that 

 this simplicity and order which he enabled us to find 

 in inorganic nature was only simplicity when viewed 

 on a large enough scale, and that it was needful to 

 deal in millions and billions before chance aberrations 

 faded into insignificance, needful to experience mole- 

 cules from the standpoint of a unit almost infinitely 

 bigger before individual behaviour could be neglected 

 and merged in the orderly average. And we might 

 be tempted to wonder how the personal idiosyncrasies 

 of our human units might appear to a being as much 

 larger than we as we are larger than a molecule — 

 whether kings and beggars would not fare alike, and 

 all the separate, striving, feeling, conflicting person- 

 alities, with their individual histories, their ancestors, 

 successes, marriages, friendships, pains, and pleasures, 

 be merged in some homogeneous and simple effect, 

 altering in response to circumstances, with changes 



