Man's Place in Nature 231 



present-day fauna and flora, but whence came liv- 

 ing organisms ? Did they first arise from the dust 

 of the earth ? By what steps did this come about ? 

 And if the Hving arose from the not-Hving, what 

 was the origin of this marvellous raw material 

 which had the potentiality of livingness in it ? 



Given simple behaviour and (inferred) simple 

 psychical processes, we can, with much hesitancy 

 and hypothesis at present, sketch out a series of 

 stages leading on to intricate behaviour and intri- 

 cate mental processes, but what were the condi- 

 tions antecedent to mind ? Is it coextensive with 

 life, or does it mysteriously emerge when a suffi- 

 cient number of nerve-cells become integrated into 

 a tiny brain? And if the primitive protoplasts 

 from which the biologist starts had in them the 

 potentiality of mind, then how is that rudiment 

 related to the not-living if the protoplasts came 

 from that ? 



''Let us admit, as scientific men, that of real 

 origin, even of the simplest thing, we know noth- 

 ing; not even of a pebble."* 



It is well, surely, that this perennial difficulty 

 as to origins should be frankly faced, even at the 

 risk of misunderstanding on the part of those who, 

 being unaware of what scientific method is, make 

 apologetic capital out of every such admission, 



^ Sir Oliver Lodge, "Ideals of Science and Faith," Lon- 

 don, 1905, p. 27. 



