LIVING THINGS AND MACHINES 199 



convincing character of so many scientific 

 arguments to this very reason that those who 

 put them forward forget or ignore the fact that 

 they are within a system. Indeed, all purely 

 materialistic explanations must be within a 

 system, for none of them can explain the 

 system itself, nor, it may be added, the for- 

 mulator of the system, nor can say why the 

 system or its formulator are either of them in 

 existence. 



Of course, it is perfectly true that many 

 writers of the class to which I have been allud- 

 ing are perfectly well aware of these facts, 

 which indeed, one would suppose, were suffi- 

 ciently obvious. Their attitude is very much 

 that of Huxley : we cannot know anything 

 about the origin of the system; let us study 

 such objective facts, if indeed there are any 

 objective facts, which we find ourselves con- 

 fronted with. There is nothing to be com- 

 plained of in this as long as those of this atti- 

 tude do not go further and try to persuade 

 their readers that they have a complete ex- 

 planation to offer them. Some do, however, 

 make such claim, incomprehensible though it 

 may be to some of us how they can do so. 

 For example, take the following passage from 

 Loeb's work, the main thesis of which is dealt 

 with in Chapter XIII. : " The idea that the 



