An Introduction to a Biology 



imposed upon. The reason that we are not allowed 

 behind the scenes is that there are no laws to be 

 seen there. But the imposition is the offspring 

 neither of malice nor of fun, but of thoughtlessness. 

 It is the result of preoccupation with the results 

 of investigation, and of inattention to the process 

 of investigation itself. 



A little self-examination would reveal the fact 

 that these laws exist, not in the world outside, but 

 in the mind of the investigator. When the biologist 

 for I am dealing in this book only with the in- 

 vestigation of vital phenomena thinks or speaks 

 as if he thought that he was discovering the laws 

 determining a set of phenomena, he is, in point of 

 fact, formulating in his own mind a law to express 

 certain sequences or regularities that he observes 

 in these phenomena. It may be objected here that 

 this is common knowledge, and that such phrases as 

 " discovering the laws which govern a set of pheno- 

 mena " are merely figures of speech, and that no 

 one ever really supposed that phenomena were 

 " governed " by laws or that these laws were sub- 

 sequently " discovered " by investigators, in the 

 literal sense of these words. Certainly, such phrases 

 are figures of speech ; but in my view they are very 

 bad ones, and ought to be dropped. They are bad 

 because they encourage the mind to travel in the 

 direction in which it likes to travel outwards. 

 These laws are formulated in the mind ; but as no 

 watch is kept on the mind they have been caught 

 up in the stream of man's interest and swept outwards 

 to the nether side of things. 



If the reader's patience will allow me, I will try 



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