SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 211 



for a unity and relation of a permanent character 

 in all things may have no philosophical foundation 

 other than that of being an instinct which forms 

 the basis of our comprehension of things generally. 

 And the notion that all things should be intelligible 

 if we only knew enough to understand them, is a 

 perfectly reasonable frame of mind. To deny this 

 would be equivalent to assuming, as Herbert Spencer 

 did, the existence of an unknowable. In his Presi- 

 dential Address to the British Association at 

 Cambridge, 1904, Mr. Balfour emphasised the fact 

 that this craving for unity in all things may be 

 none other than the result of natural selection. 

 And that the " intense intellectual gratification " 

 which we derive from the perception of that 

 unity and relationship in Nature, owes its origin to 

 the fact that healthy minds, that is minds suited 

 to their present environment, happen to possess that 

 quality. The philosophic attitude of mind does 

 not appear, directly at least, to be most useful 

 to our ordinary environment, and why it should 

 have survived is not apparent unless it be a 

 necessary correlative of that faculty or faculties 

 which enables us to adjust ourselves to it, that 

 is the faculty of common sense. 



It is therefore admissible that this unity and 

 relationship, which we regard as the basis, not 

 merely of science, but of all knowledge, may have 

 no basis other than our frame of mind demands. 

 If so, then the expectation that the so-caUed 

 material and the so-called spiritual or ultra-material 



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