1400 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



ranean law and its northward outcomes; we can but smile at their 

 conventional explanations in the law-books; for when we translate 

 penal servitude into French — "aux galeres" — we have at once the 

 fundamental explanation, in Phcenician and later navigation, by 

 oared galleys ; hence with urgent need of capturing and con- 

 demning sturdy fellows, as slaves to pull them. 



Enough however of such illustrations from social science and 

 social economy; if, whether accepted in all respects or no, their 

 point of principle be seen; viz. that place, work, and people are ever 

 interacting and thus evolving all manner of outcomes. If so, it 

 rigorously follows that our separation of physical, biological, and 

 social science is but a convenient division of labour, towards keener 

 analysis of each; and that these find their synthesis in Life's process 

 — the fundamentally physical place, the bio-functional work, and 

 the social folk. And the same for geography, economics and anthro- 

 pology within the social field. 



RESULTING CLAIMS FOR BIO-SOCIAL SYNTHESIS.— So 



unless this whole long argument be demolished, it must be faced; for 

 obviously neither ignorance of it, indifference to it, much less practical 

 conspiracy of silence, can fairly prevent the critical consideration it 

 demands. With all due respect for the subdivision and specialisation 

 of the sciences, this after all is but a necessary and important pro- 

 cess-phase in civilisation, that of the industrial age especially. And 

 while few can have worked longer than have we among various of 

 their specialisms, and at their classification also, we have thereby 

 come all the more increasingly and clearly to see that this synthesis 

 is a matter not merely or mainly of our academic logic ; it is of the 

 very nature and functioning of Life, organic and human; since in 

 continual play of interaction, between organism and environment, 

 and people with place. But if so, all these separations of Life- 

 science into sciences, sub-sciences, and specialisms within these 

 have been but the setting up of the warp-threads of thought, 

 through the whole of which life is ever throwing its all-unifying 

 shuttle. Philosophy has long claimed to unify our knowledge of 

 all kinds, and to discern and assign to these their respective values ; 

 and in this task its varied viewpoints, reasonings, and doctrines are 

 of manifold interest and value. Yet, just as definitely as with all 

 and due respect to the elder and pre-evolutionary naturalists, and 

 with incorporation of their labours and discoveries, we yet locate 

 and estimate these in the measure of their understanding of life, 

 in a word, their contribution to Biology ; so we cannot but do for 

 the philosophers ; as indeed for scientific workers too. Using Biology 

 in its most comprehensive sense, the physical sciences search into 

 our environment ; and thence more and more control of its energies 

 and resources. And since Sun and Earth are the fundamentals of 



