THE UNFATHOMED UNIVERSE 43 



it is all-important that we get at the facts, for there are 

 in currency many conclusions in regard to Nature which 

 can no longer be accepted as well grounded. What we may 

 reach can only be provisional, for the data of science are 

 in process of rapid change; but there will be some reward 

 if we can eliminate some spurious and obsolete coinage. 



Whatever be our philosophical interpretation or religious 

 conviction, w^e do well to have more than a passing acquaint- 

 ance with the world without, with the process of which 

 our life is part. The aim of this course is to state the 

 general results of biological inquiry which must be taken 

 account of if we are to think of ISTature as a whole and in 

 relation to the rest of our experience. The first part of the 

 course will deal with the realm of organisms as it is — so far 

 as its changefulness permits; the second, with its evolution, 

 — past, present, and possible. 



SUMMARY, 



In primitive times man had a slowly growing recognition of an 

 empirical order of nature, a very imperfect control of natural 

 forces, and a theory of magic or of animism. 



The empirical order has gradually given place to a scientific 

 order, ever broadening and deepening; and man's control of Nature 

 has increased in proportion. One science has been added to another 

 in elaborate specialisation, and there has also grown up a scientific 

 system or * world-outlook ' which verges on philosophy. This world- 

 outlook has ceased to be geocentric or narrowly anthropocentric. 

 The reign of law and the process of evolution have been recognised. 



The direct motives of scientific inquiry are, in the main, intel- 

 lectual curiosity, a self-preservative dislike of obscurities, a desire 

 after unity and continuity in our outlook. It is a quite specific 

 endeavour to get things under intelligent control, so that we can 

 think of them clearly in relation to the rest of our knowledge, and 

 60 that we can act effectively on the basis they afford. The aim of 

 science is to describe natural phenomena as precisely as possible, 



