SKCTION .9. OBSERVATION. 57 



For practical ends the environment is frequently interpreted 

 in a narrower and more specific sense, as in Conclusion 17 c. It 

 is, in fact, of signal importance not only to employ the term with 

 caution, but to remember in every enquiry both the vital fact 

 involved therein, and the need of making thereof a limited use. 



SECTION IX. OBSERVATION. 



22. To marvel at the twinkling stars; to contemplate the 

 periodic transformations in the form of the moon and both its 

 path and that of the sun; to observe the ebbing and the rising 

 of the tide; to note stones falling and smoke rising; to perceive 

 the flash of lightning and hear the rolling thunder; to experience 

 sunshine, wind, rain, snow, and hail; to notice the conspicuous 

 seasonal changes in plant life, and the general facts of variety, 

 growth, and decay in animate beings; to learn of men of different 

 shades of colour, and of the fortunes and falls of empires and 

 nations; to visit churches, art galleries, factories, and homes, 

 and to take stock of other striking and patent facts in the way 

 the man in the street does, has scientifically a minimum value, 

 because in no such instance are the material factors revealed to 

 the unaided sense and the unassisted reason. Apart from 

 science, he who is uninstructed is unaware, for example, that 

 plants abstract from the air carbonic acid, and return to it oxygen 

 and water vapour; nor that the action of the sun on the chloro- 

 phyll, <jr the green colouring matter, of plants leads to the ini- 

 tial production of living matter from non-living matter; nor that 

 bacteria help plants in obtaining nitrogen from the soil; nor that 

 the action of earthworms prepares the soil for vegetation; nor 

 that the form, the bright colours, the scent, and the sugary 

 secretions of flowers have developed for the purpose of attracting 

 insects which act as fertilising agents; nor that plants evolve, and 

 are constituted of minute cells; nor indeed anything of conse- 

 quence regarding the vegetable kingdom; nor that enzymes, inter- 

 nal secretions, and vitamines exist, and are indispensable to the 

 maintenance of life, or that the cells possibly utilise molecular 

 energy, and are affected by molecular movements; nor that 

 ''physiology consists largely in tracing the way in which Oxygen 

 enters the body, the manner in which it is distributed to the 

 tissues, and the various phases of vital activity which it brings 

 about within the living tissues" (W. A. Locy, Biology and its 

 Makers, p. 183); nor that food is directly transformed into energy 

 without being first converted into heat. And what is true of 

 his ignorance of life is true quite generally. Astronomical, 

 geological, electrical, chemical, meteorological, and other leading 

 natural laws, are wholly beyond his conventional range, and 

 the genesis and meaning of cultural phenomena are wrapt for 

 him in an impenetrable fog. So far as observing what is 



