Continuity 83 



proximate and immediate formula for 

 guiding research. Everything beyond 

 that belongs to another region, and must 

 be reached by other methods. To explain 

 the Psychical in terms of Physics and 

 Chemistry is simply impossible; hence 

 there is a tendency to deny its existence, 

 save as an epiphenomenon. But all such 

 philosophising is unjustified, and is really 

 bad Metaphysics. 



So if ever in their enthusiasm scientific 

 workers go too far and say that the things 

 they exclude from study have no existence 

 in the universe, we must appeal against 

 them to direct experience. We ourselves 

 are alive, we possess life and mind and 

 consciousness, we have first-hand experi- 

 ence of these things quite apart from 

 laboratory experiments. They belong to 

 the common knowledge of the race. 

 Births, deaths, and marriages are not 

 affairs of the biologist, but of humanity; 

 they went on before a single one of them 

 was understood, before a vestige of 

 science existed. We ourselves are the 

 laboratory in which men of science, 



