An Introduction to a Biology 



Suppose that when biological problems were first 

 stated, or to speak more accurately, first gradually 

 took shape in the minds of men, suppose that they 

 were wrongly stated, suppose that they took the 

 wrong shape ; the solutions of these problems will 

 not be answers to the questions actually posed by 

 Nature herself. 



I can illustrate my meaning by the following 

 fable. There was once a man who could only play 

 one tune, " Polly winked her eye." He played it 

 with one finger only. He learnt it one day, not 

 from hearing it, but from the notes, spelling it out 

 with great difficulty. It was in the key of C major. 

 He got the intervals between the notes correctly, 

 allowing that there were no sharps and no flats ; 

 but he began on the note below the one he should 

 have begun on. 



He always played it like this and seemed to 

 enjoy it. That was how he had ground out the tune 

 for himself ; that was how he always thought of it ; 

 and that was how it would always exist for him. 

 But the tune was untrue owing to the initial mistake 

 he had made. 



Are we certain that in our statement of biological 

 problems we may not have begun on the wrong note ? 

 The possibility that we may have done so deserves 

 our earnest consideration. For my part I think we 

 did begin on the wrong note and that, as a conse- 

 quence, our present statement of biological problems 

 does not correspond to the questions posed by Nature 

 herself ; and as a further consequence, that though 

 our solutions of those problems may be perfectly 

 correct, they are solutions of problems posed by 



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