CLASSIFICATION OF LIVING TYPES 47 



real point at issue, and oftener than not the outcome 

 of a silent fear that some cherished notion or well- 

 established belief may be uprooted if the new ideas 

 are true. 



But these apprehensions are not always well 

 founded, and the outcome of much controversy and 

 overtaxed debate often results in the admission that 

 had the parties understood each other at the beginning 

 of the dispute they would have been of the one 

 opinion all through. 



In bringing in the assistance of the neighbouring 

 sciences, we should be careful to bear in mind that 

 they do not lead too hastily to conclusions which 

 might prevent us from developing the subject suffi- 

 ciently from our own special point of view when it seems 

 necessary. Thus there is the great difficulty we are 

 obliged to face : that of the intrusion of foreign 

 ideas, to the bewilderment of our own. Yet these 

 obstacles, much as we should guard against them, are 

 not sufficient in themselves to prevent us from accept- 

 ing whatever assistance the facts of Nature, outside 

 our own arbitrary division of it, may afford. 



The survival of living proteid as the one kind of 

 Matter that has been able to persist, notwithstand- 

 ing the vicissitudes which Matter is heir to by its 

 own laws, is a question which needs careful con- 

 sideration. The fact that it is the most stable sub- 

 stance which at the same time manifests the neces- 

 sary instability- for life, is in itself one of the pro- 

 foundest problems that Nature still presents. On 

 the other hand, the continuous scale of descent of 



