164. THE UNIQUENESS OF LIFE 



doing so, so it is possible that an aspect of reality which may 

 be safely neglected, being latent or hidden, in one constella- 

 tion of matter and energy, may be patent and dominant in 

 another. Instead of supposing the intervention of vital 

 impetus or Entelechies as bolts from the blue which enter 

 organisms, may we not conclude that the qualities which 

 render the postulation of vital impetus and Entelechy neces- 

 sary to some minds have been in kind present throughout. 

 We say " in kind ", since most naturalists agree in believing 

 that we share in a movement which is not the unwinding 

 of something originally given, but an evolution in which 

 time counts. 



Our argument for the autonomy of biology may be ex- 

 pressed in general form by saying that it recognises the 

 correlation rather than the unity of the science of Nature. 

 We find it technically stated by Prof. Arthur 0. Lovejoy: — 

 '' Scientific unification takes place in so far as diverse classes 

 of phenomena come to be recognised as deducible from a 

 single, relatively simple generalisation concerning the cor- 

 relation of certain variables — provided that in each partic- 

 ular case the actual natures or values of the variables be 

 known. And unification fails of attainment in so far as 

 two or more kinds of phenomena appear (in the light of 

 existing knowledge) as undeducible from any single, already 

 verified law, even were the actual values of the variables 

 referred to by any such law precisely ascertained for the 

 phenomena in question. When two or more comparatively 

 specific laws are, in the latter sense, incapable of being 

 deduced from any common, more general, law — in other 

 words, are not thus far unified — we may speak of the laws 

 as being discontinuous with one another" (1912, p. 17). 

 He goes on to say that while discontinuity emerges if the 



