646 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



the higher levels of the cat's mind; but there is less to discuss than 

 there seemed at first sight. From the experimental data adduced 

 by Dr. Gates, "it seems extremely probable that the cat experiences 

 the general bodily states of pleasure and pain, and those major 

 emotions of fear, anger, general excitement, in a manner com- 

 parable though not identical with ours". On the ideational side, the 

 cat does not seem to be higlily evolved. For although it may some- 

 times show an intelligent appreciation of a critical situation, and 

 put two and two together, controlling new action in the light of 

 previous experience, it seems to have a very limited repertory of 

 ideas, very little memory, and still less anticipation. "Poor Pussy!" 

 "Good Doggie!" thus turn out to be more fully verifiable estimates 

 than we have realised in thus addressing our domestic companions 

 since childhood. 



AUTONOMY OF LIFE AND MIND 



COSMOSPHERE, BIOSPHERE, AND SOCIOSPHERE.— The 



simple and learned are agreed that it is useful to recognise three 

 great orders of facts. First, there is the domain of things, the physical 

 universe, the CosmospJiere. It includes the distant nebulae, whose 

 light takes thousands of years to reach us, and the dewdrops among 

 the grass; it includes land and sea, mountains and plains, clouds, 

 and precious stones ; it includes the long gamut of radiant energies 

 and the gravitational pull that one body has on another; it includes 

 atoms and the world inside the atom. This is the cosmosphere. 



Second, there is the realm of Organisms, our world of plant and 

 animal life, the Biosphere. It includes the hyssop on the wall and 

 the cedars of Lebanon, the invisible bacteria, the yeasts in the 

 rising dough, the mushrooms and seaweeds, the mosses and ferns, 

 and all the flowers of the field. It includes the dancing midges and 

 the whale disporting itself with its flukes, the invisible animal 

 germs that cause malaria and sleeping sickness as well as the huge 

 elephant, the sea's abundant progeny and all the birds of the air. 

 This is the biosphere; which, indeed, includes ourselves so far as 

 animals, as Linnaeus classified us long ago. 



Third, there is the kingdom of Man in his higher and truly human 

 groupings and activities, and, throughout the history of civilisation to 

 this day, their results in languages and literature, societies and institu- 

 t ions and products of mankind - the sociosphere. The words may be bad, 

 but the grouping is useful -<:osmosphere, biosphere, and sociosphere. 



These three spheres are not indeed separate, or thoroughly separ- 

 able. For the physico-chemical sphere envelops and interpenetrates 

 the biosphere, not merely because the living creature is immersed 

 in an environment of matter and energy, with which it traffics, but 

 because there is a chemistry and a physics of the living body. As 



