232 The Bible of Nature 



proclaiming that science has confessed herself 

 bankrupt. Three notes are here necessary, 



(a) In the first place, these difficulties as to 

 origins are not all on the same plane. The con- 

 ditions of the origin of birds are unknown, but 

 we cannot doubt that birds sprang from a reptilian 

 stock, and this problem is much more soluble than 

 that of the origin of Vertebrates. The origin of 

 Vertebrates or the origin of multicellular organisms 

 is almost certain to be much less obscure fifty years 

 hence than it is now; but it is possible that the 

 origin of living organisms will be no nearer solu- 

 tion a century hence. The question of the origin 

 of mind is again of a different order, and it may 

 be that the question as we have put it is quite ille- 

 gitimate. To ask where the first raw material 

 of the Kosmos came from is to ask how the be- 

 ginning began. 



(b) In the second place, sound science can 

 begin at any point without necessarily accounting 

 for — i. €., describing the genesis of — its data. 

 There are few biologists who trouble their heads 

 about the origin of living creatures. They take 

 the origin of organisms for granted, and proceed 

 to study the structure and activities, the develop- 

 ment and racial history of particular forms. 

 Similarly there is thoroughly sound anthropology 

 and psychology, starting from man and mind as 

 "given." 



