258 CONSCIOUSNESS AND EXPERIENCE 



it a science? Will not the psychologist be the 

 first to repudiate this attempt to mix him up in 

 matters philosophical? We need only to keep in 

 mind the specific facts involved in the term Course 

 or Process of Experience to avoid this danger. 

 The immediate preoccupation of the psychologist 

 is with very definite and empirical facts questions 

 like the limits of audition, of the origin of pitch, 

 of the structure and conditions of the musical scale, 

 etc. Just so the immediate affair of the geologist 

 is with particular rock-structures, of the botanist 

 with particular plants, and so on. But through 

 the collection, description, location, classification 

 of rocks the geologist is led to the splendid story 

 of world-forming. The limited, fixed, and sepa 

 rate piece of work is dissolved away in the fluent 

 and dynamic drama of the earth. So, the plant 

 leads with inevitableness to the whole process of 

 life and its evolution. 



In form, the botanist still studies the genus, 

 the species, the plant hardly, indeed, that ; rather 

 the special parts, the structural elements, of the 

 plant. In reality, he studies life itself; the 

 structures are the indications, the signature 

 through which he renders transparent the mystery 

 of life growing in the changing world. It was 

 doubtless necessary for the botanist to go through 

 the Linnean period the period of engagement 

 with rigid detail and fixed classifications ; of tear- 



