SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 163 



tion to the physical) there was only a vital order. 

 No brains worthy of the name had yet been 

 differentiated, and everything might have been 

 described in biological terms, just as we may de- 

 scribe the ongoings of an amoeba or of a fresh- 

 water hydra. It is quite another matter, however, 

 to say that biological categories exhausted the 

 reality of animate Nature in these pre-mental 

 days. Indeed, if intelligent behaviour and hu- 

 man reason evolved from the reality which was 

 biologically describable as a number of simple 

 organisms, we may safely say that the biological 

 description is certainly not exhaustive. The 

 same holds good in regard to the development of 

 the individual human being. 



In questions like this, which are perhaps be- 

 yond the limits of human intelligence, diagrams 

 and metaphors are apt to do more harm than 

 good, but we might compare the order of Nature 

 which we study to a great fabric passing from the 

 loom of time with a pattern slowly changing as 

 the ages pass. It is woven of threads of different 

 colours which it is the business of the several 

 sciences to follow, unravelling the web. We 

 can well imagine that there are areas of fabric 

 in which certain threads seem to be absent, where, 

 indeed, their hidden presence may be ignored, 

 except in reference to further stretches of the web. 

 In the area that we call the physical order we 



