98 BIOLOGY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 



When we examine the process of know 

 ledge itself we find that it is a progressive 

 defining of our experience in terms of funda 

 mental conceptions or categories: also a 

 gradual passing from lower, more abstract or 

 indefinite conceptions to higher, more con 

 crete or definite ones. This is the course of 

 all scientific investigation. It is only with 

 infinite travail and pains that our experience 

 gradually defines itself in terms of higher and 

 more definite conceptions. A living organism 

 is not given to us complete in thought all at 

 once: it only gradually reveals itself more 

 and more definitely in the course of long and 

 arduous biological investigation. It is the 

 same on a lower plane for the physical world, 

 or for the mathematical world of abstract 

 form and quantitative relations. But from 

 the very nature of the categories or funda 

 mental conceptions themselves all true know 

 ledge must be a gradual revelation of the 

 lower or more abstract in terms of the higher 

 or more concrete aspects of reality ; and as 

 the conception of organism is a higher and 

 more concrete conception than that of matter 

 and energy, science must ultimately aim at 



