clearest in its most advanced forms 9 



have to study are clearest and most distinct. 

 In the case of life there can be no doubt that 

 this is where they are the most developed. 

 " It is clear," as G. H. Lewes once said, " that 

 we should never rightly understand vital 

 phenomena were we to begin oiu* study of 

 life by contemplating its simplest manifesta- 

 tions... we can only understand the Amoeba 

 and the Polype by a light reflected from the 

 study of Man^." Moreover if we begin from 

 the material side we must keep to this side 

 all through : if matter is to explain life at all, 

 it must explain all life. But it is evidently 

 impossible to describe the behaviour of the 

 higher organisms in physical terms. Indeed 

 the ablest physicists recognise that the 

 concepts of physics are inadequate to the 

 description of life even in its lowest forms. 

 We may conclude then, that when, as in the 



1 Problems of Life and Mind, 3rd Series, 1879, p. 122. 



