AS THE BIOLOGIST SEES IT 



have insisted on an acceptance of un 

 justifiable significance. /I have already 

 called attention to the too bold assump 

 tions of the extreme disciples of the 

 mechanistic school of life. For another 

 thing one can never get away from letting 

 one s own observations, with all their 

 limitations both as to scope and accuracy, 

 play a too large part in determining one s 

 judgments about any matter however 

 technical, and however demanding, for 

 correct understanding, of a certain special 

 training and equipment on the part of 

 the observer. This is one of the reasons 

 why the professors of political economy 

 and sociology have such a hard row to 

 hoe. Everyone is his own economist and 

 sociologist, because the subjects are per 

 force under everyone s observation, al 

 though this observation may really be 

 very limited and usually is of a most 

 untrained and unmethodical kind. Pro 

 fessors of astronomy on the other hand 

 are accepted unhesitatingly as authorities; 

 so few of us have telescopes. 

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