BIOLOGY IN ITS WIDER ASPECTS 1381 



we now substitute any less obvious organic structure and develop- 

 ment — say the growth of the human thigh-bone, from babe's to 

 giant's — the same fundamental inter-relation of the three Euclidean 

 space-co-ordinates with their associated time-increments, remains 

 sufficient for us, though we now see these form-changes as more 

 complex; since involving un-building, in time, as well as up-building, 

 and with these negative and positive growth-processes going on 

 together until maturity is attained. The understanding of this 

 complex organic growth process may thus be a convenient intro- 

 duction to the difficulties of social growth as well. "On ne detruit 

 que ce qu'on remplace." 



Now another simple biological criticism, which may be unfamiliar 

 to the physicist and his perplexed students, namely this: that, 

 when all is said of these changes to relativity for the mathematico- 

 physical universe, we simply see these as broadly parallel to, and 

 harmonious with, that way of looking at the organic world with 

 which we have long been familiar! For it must be clearly noted 

 that Newton's absolute space and time were but part of the general 

 system of reference also applied in his day to the organic and human 

 worlds alike, since these were also assumed of practically simulta- 

 neous and definite creation. This indeed was set forth by Linnaeus, 

 in his conception of species as separate and simultaneous creations ; 

 which he expressed soon after Newton's day, in that still classical 

 and long authoritative Systema Naturce which thus in its way cor- 

 responded to the Principia. 



But with fuller knowledge of the forms and life of species, and 

 with more species and varieties too, this conception became a 

 relative one; as for Buffon: and thus, and thereafter increasingly, 

 an evolutionary one accordingly, in which each and all the forms 

 of life independently develop, each in its own system of reference 

 throughout space, in time as well, and throughout its varied move- 

 ment of functioning. This, in fact, can be traced into and throughout 

 the sub-sciences of biology, i.e. in life's varied forms and function- 

 ings, their different appearances in time, their very various distri- 

 bution in space, and combined in their development and racial 

 evolution accordingly. Here, then, instead of seeing any serious 

 transformation in biology arising from this new mathematico- 

 physical revolution, from Newtonian absolutism to Einsteinian 

 relativity, we can but congratulate its exponents on effecting this 

 needed emancipation; albeit with some mild surprise that this 

 should have taken them well on for two centuries longer than for 

 the analogous progress from Linnaeus, as absolute creationist, to 

 Buffon, as evolutionary relativist, since these were practically 

 contemporaries. 



Relativity in Sociology. — The like, too, for the social sciences. 

 In Newton's day (as for "fundamentalists" still) there prevailed 



