WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT. 59 



cause human observation and logic can be only partial, 

 no law of life can be fully stated. Because the processes 

 of the human mind are human, with organic limitations, 



the study of the mind itself becomes a 



Meaning of law. . r ^1 • e u- • t? 



part of the science of bionomics. I'or 



it is itself an instrument or a combination of instruments 

 by which we acquire such knowledge of the world out- 

 side of ourselves as may be needed in the art of liv- 

 ing, in the degree in which we are able to practise 

 that art. 



The necessary sequence of events exists, whether we 

 are able to comprehend it or not. The fall of a leaf 

 follows fixed laws as surely as the motion of a planet. 

 It falls by chance because its short movement gives us 

 no time for observation and calculation. It falls by 

 chance because, its results being unimportant to us, we 

 give no heed to the details of its motion. But as the 

 hairs of our head are all numbered, so are numbered 

 all the gyrations and undulations of every chance au- 

 tumn leaf. All processes in the universe are alike nat- 

 ural. The creation of man or the growth of a state 

 is as natural as the formation of an apple or the 

 growth of a snow bank. All are alike supernatural, 

 for they all rest on the huge unseen solidity of the uni- " 

 verse, the imperishability of matter and the immanence 

 of law. 



We sometimes classify sciences as exact and inexact, 

 in accordance with our ability exactly to weigh forces 

 and results. The exact sciences deal with simple data 

 accessible and capable of measurement. The results of 

 their interactions can be reduced to mathematics. Be- 

 cause of their essential simplicity, the mathematical sci- 

 ences have been carried to great comparative perfection. 

 It is easier to weigh an invisible planet than to measure the 

 force of heredity in a grain of corn. The sciences of life 



