i FITTINGNESS FOR PURPOSE 41 



now admits he failed in the " survival of 

 the fittest." The human element involved 

 or suggested in the idea of fitness 

 is nothing to the anthropomorphism, or 

 " anthropocentricity," of the expressions 

 into which he slips, perhaps unawares, 

 when he is face to face with those 

 requisites of language which arise out of 

 the facts of observation, and out of the 

 necessities of thought. Thus in the 

 midst of an elaborate attempt to explain 

 in purely chemical and physical aspects 

 the composition and attributes of protein, 

 or protoplasm assumed to be the funda- 

 mental substance of all organisms he 

 breaks out into the following sentence, 

 charged with teleological phraseology : 

 " So that while the composite atoms 

 of which organic tissues are built up 

 possess that low molecular mobility 

 fitting them for plastic purposes, it 

 results from the extreme molecular 



