DEVELOPMENT BY NATURAL SELECTION. 131 



us to interpret, the high-power views by seeing ex- 

 perience whole. In the high-power views the outlines 

 are detailed, but imperfect. How very imperfect, for 

 instance, our interpretations of the physical world are 

 I have tried to illustrate to you to-night. In biology 

 we get a lower-power view, by which, though we lose 

 in detail, we can correct misinterpretations of the high- 

 power view of physics and chemistry. In what are 

 called the humanistic branches of knowledge we can 

 go further still in this correction, provided they deal, 

 as they ought to deal, not with trivial detail, but with 

 the development and practical application of great ideas, 

 including scientific ideas. In philosophy or religion — 

 for religion, whether in a crude or in a highly developed 

 form, cannot be distinguished from philosophy — we 

 attempt to survey and give a general interpretation of 

 the whole of our experience. 



To many it has seemed that natural science along with 

 its practical application has destroyed the old spiritual 

 view of things — has shown it to be mere illusion and 

 superstition. The idealistic philosophy bids us to look 

 deeper — to look at facts and not merely at theories, 

 and to look at them as a whole. 



As I write mv lecture there occurs to me something 

 which I witnessed nearly ten years ago near this lecture 

 hall. A large coal mine on the outskirts of Birmingham 

 was on fire. The fire had occurred just at the bottom 

 of the downcast shaft, about 2000 feet below the surface ; 

 and smoke and poisonous gas were being carried by the 

 air-current all over the mine, in which a number of 

 miners were cut off. We knew, however, that there 

 were men underground who, if they had not. fallen 



