18 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



sailing their intellectual craft in the lea of their 

 particular shore of well-ascertained fact, are apt 

 to see things in the clearness of a false simplicity. 

 Science has come to know, they tell us, the ins 

 and outs of the stuff the world is made of Matter, 

 which is built up of molecules, which are composed 

 of atoms, which consist of corpuscles or electrons. 

 And Science has also come to know, they tell us, 

 the power that is resident in the world Energy, 

 whose measure is Force. It is a power of doing 

 work, which is always passing from form to form 

 without any loss or any gain. Give us Matter 

 and Energy, they say, and we will make a world 

 out of them. Just as the chemist can build up 

 urea and sugar and indigo from simple substances, 

 so Nature long ago, in some unknown hotbed, 

 made a synthesis of proteids which combined to 

 form small viable organisms. These multiplied, 

 and spread themselves, and varied under the stim- 

 uli of new surroundings. Given Variations and 

 plenty of time, Selection and Isolation can do 

 the rest. And just as consciousness emerges at 

 an uncertain stage in the development of the 

 individual egg-cell, so in the history of animal 

 organisms there was an evolution of mind. Now, 

 far be it from us to say that there is not consider- 

 able truth in this description of what may have 

 occurred, but it is certainly far too facile and 

 easy-going. It slurs over gigantic difficulties and 



