THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 85 



limits of philosophical enquiry, slides from these 

 formulae and symbols into what is commonly 

 understood by materialism, seems to me to place 

 himself on a level with the mathematician who 

 should mistake the xs and y's with which he 

 works his problems, for real entities and with 

 this further disadvantage, as compared with the 

 mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are 

 of no practical consequence, while the errors of 

 systematic materialism may paralyse the energies 

 and destroy the beauty of a life." 



My objection to the protoplasm theory is that, as 

 usually understood, it is an over-hasty generalization, 

 which has done harm by making us practically ignore 

 the Law of Interchange and its corollaries. It has 

 explained away the distinction between the animal and 

 the vegetable. 



Science, while it explains away and obliterates 

 merely artificial distinctions, emphasizes, and in ex- 

 plaining increases, natural distinctions, and in spite of 

 all exceptions, such as flesh-eating plants and the 

 numerous tribes of carnivorous animals, that is a true 

 Law of Nature, and good for man to follow, which 

 makes the plant our immediate food provider. 



