PHYSIOLOGICAL 445 



striking it is that a venomous snake should have evolved its poison- 

 injection apparatus out of the tooth, while a bee's sting is a trans- 

 formed egg-laying organ ! 



In conclusion: Our human conception of the poisoner is em- 

 phatically sinister, but among animals the use of poison is as often 

 protective as aggressive. 



WHAT IS LIFE? 



(i) Modern discussions of the perennial question: What is Life? 

 have shown in varying degrees a recognition of the common- 

 place that hopeful progress towards an answer lies in a fuller 

 knowledge of living creatures. No amount of verbal dexterity or 

 even profound reflection over the concept of "hfe" floating 

 in detachment will much advance understanding, unless we are at 

 the same time deepening our acquaintance with organisms, from 

 microbes to men, and trying to see life whole, not as a bio- 

 chemical witch-pot merely, but as the activity of individualities 

 that develop, grow, and reproduce, that struggle, vary, and evolve. 

 If we are to answer the question : What is Man ? or What is Person- 

 ality? we must deepen our knowledge of men and of personalities, 

 and of Shakespeare and Newton as well as of Bushmen. So to avoid 

 false simplicity in our answer to the question: What is Life? we 

 must seek a comprehensive, all-round, and intimate view of organ- 

 isms, taking account of intelligent apes as well as of dimly purposive 

 Amoebae, and of psychobiosis as well as of biopsychosis. We cannot 

 make sense of any kind of life without recognising the importance 

 of fermentation, but we cannot make sense of the life of higher 

 animals apart from feeling, intelligence, and some sort of purpose ; 

 and the continuity of organisms makes it probable that the dim 

 analogues of these psychical qualities are present throughout. 



The extreme behaviourists or biomechanists will, of course, 

 refuse to take account of any process that does not admit of physico- 

 chemical analysis and description, but this position does not work 

 out well in our daily life and conversation, where we have to allow 

 at every turn for intelligent or even rational purpose. Yet even these 

 extremists will agree with our first proposition that a better under- 

 standing of life is likely to follow a deepening and widening of our 

 study of organisms. 



(2) It seems to us that no one has as yet succeeded in re-describing 

 in terms of anything else a fair and intact sample of that distinctive 

 kind of activity that we call life ; and it is possible that the nature of 

 life lies outside the realm of the knowable. But even if we cannot 

 understand what life essentially is, it is surely useful to return to 

 the bed-rock of facts and seek to envisage living. This is oiu- second 

 proposition. The fundamental fact is that living creatures act on 



