THE UNFATHOMED UNIVERSE 17 



of scientific procedure, which makes headway by abstraction. 

 Divide et impera is the scientific rule. The scientific de- 

 scription of Nature is made up of many partial views con- 

 tributed by the several sciences. We have to confine our 

 attention at a given time to certain aspects of a thing or 

 process. We treat of the mass of a body as if we had the 

 body under the influence of gravitation only, though we 

 know that we cannot secure the entire absence of electrical, 

 magnetic, and other forces. Science works with perfect 

 levers, with pure masses, * ideal systems ' in general — 

 which we do not meet in everyday life. 



In certain cases the abstracting is obvious and not danger- 

 ous; in other cases it escapes attention and leads to fallacy. 

 We know that biologically we cannot abstract the trout from 

 the stream ; even for the purposes of analytical anatomy we 

 must remember the environment, still more when dynamical 

 relations are considered. This is obvious, but is it so ob- 

 vious that a theory of animal behaviour which reduces all 

 to ' forced movements ' or tropisms is the outcome of " a 

 process of abstraction which leaves out the characteristic 

 features of the concrete fact to be explained ", the plasticity, 

 the endeavour, the awareness of the organism ? 



(e) When we take the long and wide philosophical view 

 of a subject, trying to see the phenomena or the process as 

 a whole, the inevitable limitations of science must be borne 

 in mind. If all Animate Nature is the outcome of a few 

 Protists, we must see these in the light of the evolution as 

 a whole. '' The true nature of the antecedents, that is to 

 say, of the apparent cause, is revealed only in the effects " 

 (Pringle-Pattison, 1917, p. 332) ; or should one not say the 

 full nature? If we believe that TyndalFs " matter " (Brit- 

 ish Association Address, Belfast, 1874), with its famous 



