THE KINGDOM OF MAN 223 



ment and flux ; there is bustle in the dust ; and though 

 it is darkening counsel to speak of the ' life ' of crystals, 

 there is a hurry-scurry of particles in the heart of a 

 quartz pebble. What happens every day in the domain 

 of things can be described for practical purposes exhaus- 

 tively in terms of matter and motion. The laws of the 

 domain are chemical and physical, dynamical and 

 mechanical. The laws that Man has succeeded in 

 formulating must be approaching the truth, i.e. cor- 

 respondence with reality, for they can be used as a safe 

 basis for prediction and preparation. The fates of 

 empires are staked on them, — in a naval battle, for 

 instance. 



Secondly, there is the realm of organisms, the sphere 

 of plants and animals — the Biosphere. It is immersed 

 in the domain of things and always interacting there- 

 with. It is more intricate and more elusive than the 

 non-living world, and we have not — ^probably cannot 

 have — such an expert knowledge of it. No doubt it 

 is possible to give a chemical and physical account of 

 the measurable activities that go on in this animate 

 realm, but to think that this is all is to leave Hamlet 

 out of the play. The outcome of the chemico-physical 

 analysis is not an intelligible le-description of the 

 activities and behaviour of living creatures. Even when 

 we leave * mind ' out of account, living creatures cannot 

 be described adequately or exhaustively in terms of 

 matter and motion. If we are clever enough we can 

 account mechanically for the return of a boomerang 

 to the thrower's hand, but we cannot account mechani- 



