50 THE NEW PHYSIOLOGY. 



relating to the association and maintenance of structure 

 and activity, whereas the conceptions of mass and 

 energy allow of no such expression, biology is on a 

 higher plane of knowledge than physics and chemistry. 

 We see deeper into reality in biology, although our 

 vision is less detailed. 



A living organism, as a biologist regards it, excludes 

 all those additional elements in knowledge which we 

 meet with in the conception of personality. The world 

 of personality, when we study it, and consider what it 

 implies, gives us a far deeper view into the nature of 

 reality. 1 We find that it is a world of duty — a world 

 not merely of individual personalities scattered in a 

 mysterious void, but a world which, in the answer to 

 the imperative call of duty, shows itself to be one 

 spiritual world. 



The flashes of war have lit up for us this spiritual 

 world. The sense that it is our plighted duty to deal 

 with an infamous disregard of elementary right has sent 

 hundreds of thousands of our best and truest into the 

 fighting line, and is marshalling the whole activities of 

 our nation and its allies in a manner in which thev never 

 were marshalled before. We are fighting against power- 

 ful and resourceful nations, inspired by patriotic motives 

 as strong as our own ; nations which have made contri- 

 butions to human progress which are perhaps as great 

 and as valuable as any we have made ; nations with 

 which those of us who in the past have experienced their 

 hospitality and friendship would be foremost in wishing 

 for honourable peace. Yet we are waging this war in 



1 For further discussion of this subject I may perhaps refer 

 to my book, Mechanism, Life, and Personality, 1913 



