II20 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



thence onwards again, as from the atomic formulae of chemistry to 

 the recent analysis and visualisation of atoms themselves, and even 

 with the new alchemy of transmutation in progress. As all such 

 needed summaries appear along these corridors, must we not 

 imagine a fresh impetus, alike to the makers of them and to their 

 students? Thus, recall how even the world's press, as yet so seldom 

 interested in science, has expressed the wide interest created by the 

 replacement of the old astronomic orrery by the magnificent work- 

 ing model of Zeiss ? Again, the halls of geology and palaeontology, 

 leading up to the present distributions of life upon the globe, need 

 in like manner to be broadly indicated, and as vividly as may be. 



Passing now to the side of humanistic studies, we see these 

 appropriately located by help of the long chart of time, from the 

 various ages from which their heritage has come down to us; and 

 as our historic outline grows more complete, it finds space for 

 literature and philosophies, for customs and laws, in short, all the 

 many aspects and products of human life. The various partial 

 accounts of these cannot but go on advancing, and even clarifying 

 towards comparisons, as these again towards pro-syntheses. The 

 ideal synthesis is, of course, still far beyond us, if not indeed at 

 infinity; yet those various steps cannot but be more or less in 

 asymptotic progress, and are thus encouraging approximations. 



We have thus, in principle, ignored no department, nor even 

 specialism within it. Would not such an endeavour by each, towards 

 such visualised outline and expression along their corridors, be 

 stimulating to each and all ? Would not we in these perambulations 

 be reviving, and this even literally and concretely, the peripatetic 

 philosophy of old? And this with the encyclopedic spirit of Aristotle, 

 once more progressing from the scientific and naturalistic side 

 towards the humanistic; and so in time coming to meet the idealists, 

 who have sought to continue the spirit of Plato. 



Our various imaged and storied corridors, of which each wall- 

 space gives the outline of its adjacent field of knowledge and inter- 

 pretation may thus be expressed on actual plans; and in harmony 

 with that clear mutual presentment of the biological and anthropo- 

 social museums from which we started. What renders possible such 

 a correlation of scientific and humanistic studies ? The common bond 

 of essential agreement is in terms of Life and Evolution. The life- 

 process common to these studies is that of inter-relation of organism 

 with environment in general, and so of people and place in all human 

 particulars. The formula already so often employed — that of 

 organism functioning on environment (Ofe) and, of course, with the 

 environment (more or less modified) conditioning organism anew 

 (Efo) — is not only comprehensive throughout all organic life; it 

 subsumes the physical world as well. The conception of humanity, 

 in all its groupings and individuals, as acting upon their situation, 



