ON THE GENETIC VIEW OF NATURE. 867 



mind. We have also been reminded that the theories of 

 the so-called stability of the planetary system which 

 were propounded in the earlier years of our century, 

 and which have found their way into popular treatises 

 on astronomy, are only approximations. On the other 

 side, we have daily before our eyes the ever -recurring 

 instances of the building up and running down of natural 

 forces in smaller systems. These we term organisms, the 

 living things of nature. It is from and through them 

 that we first learnt to look upon the whole of nature 

 as having a history and a life. Imperceptibly we have 

 been led to study life, the genesis of things, on the large 

 scale and in the abstract, and in doing so have lost sight 

 of the life which goes on around and near us. Both the 

 morphological and genetic views of nature started with a 

 biological interest, but have gradually lost sight of it. 

 It is time to come back to it and to see what real 

 progress has been made during our century in the study 

 of life itself the truly biological view of nature. This 

 will be the object of the next chapter. 



