VIRTUES AND VICES OF THE METHOD OF SCIENCE. I 53 



science, which of necessity must try to explain the 

 higher by the lower, constantly fails to include the 

 whole of the higher, and is therefore constantly 

 driven to deny what it cannot explain, and to reduce 

 the higher to the lower. But though at first it 

 seems plausible to explain the higher and fuller by 

 something which seems simpler because less signific- 

 ant, by dint of leaving out its surplus meaning, 

 this process becomes more and more difficult the 

 further it is carried, and if it were carried to its con- 

 sistent conclusion, it would be seen to refute itself. 

 It would end by explaining all things by that which 

 is nothing in itself, and has meaning only in relat- 

 ion to the things it is supposed to explain. The 

 further we carry our researches into the lower, the 

 more it appears that it is not really simple, but only 

 vaguer and more indefinite, and that the lack of 

 differentiation indicates not that we have got down 

 to the fundamental principles of the complex, but 

 that it arises from a confounding of all the distinct- 

 ions which enable us to comprehend the thing. 



To take only the one example of protoplasm, 

 which is the starting-point of biology (itself one of 

 the higher sciences). For biology protoplasm is ultim- 

 ate : it can no longer be derived from any lower 

 and *' simpler " form of life. It can be defined only 

 in terms of what it becomes or develops into. And 

 yet this *' simple " protoplasm performs all the funct- 

 ions which in its differentiated developments fall to 

 the share of the most various structures and the 

 most various faculties. It sees and hears and smells 

 and tastes and feels, thinks and wills and moves, it 

 absorbs and excretes, it grows and reproduces itself, 

 and all without any discoverable difference of struc- 

 ture. What then have we gained by deriving 



