12 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 



yields pleasure at its highest to all the 

 artificers. 



It would never have done for the physiolo- 

 gist to remain idle till the chemist had dis- 

 covered the nature and properties of all the 

 chemical constituents of the body, nor for the 

 psychologist to abandon the study of the 

 mind until the physiologist had supplied him 

 with a complete physical basis for his work by 

 elucidating the minute structure, relation- 

 ships and simple reactions of the nervous 

 system. It would have gone hardly with the 

 world's invalids, as also with the health of the 

 whole community, if the physician and sur- 

 geon had waited for the completed sciences 

 of chemistry, biology, physiology and psycho- 

 logy before tackling the problems of disease, 

 although every year they stand indebted for 

 further advances to discoveries made in these 

 cognate sciences. 



Such reasoning extends right up into the 

 highest regions of human thought and activity, 

 into the study of the so-called humanities, 

 history, sociology and religion. Each one is 

 progressive, all are living and moving, dis- 

 covery in one affects others, and all must be 

 studied simultaneously, each by its own host of 

 votaries. Very often the exclusive study of 

 one branch of knowledge at close quarters 



