118 ORGANISM AND ENVIRONMENT 
manifests itself which entirely transcends our individ- 
ual personalities, that constitutes our knowledge of 
God. In the world of duty and knowledge, not in the 
natural world as such, we find the God whom our 
fathers have worshipped, and in whose strength they 
have been of good courage, and faced trouble, danger 
and death. God is near to us, and not far away. 
The facts of biology lead to the conclusion that the 
physical and chemical interpretation of the world is 
fundamentally imperfect, however useful it may be. 
The biological interpretation is itself similarly imper- 
fect in view of the facts relating to conscious person- 
ality. But when we regard the natural world, as it 
seems to me we ought and must, not as something com- 
pletely interpreted in the light of existing theory, but 
as an imperfect interpretation which is the expres- 
sion of countless centuries of human effort, the natural 
world becomes part of the world of duty and knowl- 
edge. Natural science and its applications are the 
rough-hewing in the spiritual world, and the funda- 
mental conceptions of each of the natural sciences’ are 
the tools, fashioned by human endeavour, with which 
this rough-hewing is done. Scientific results are in 
themselves only incomplete and abstract presentations 
of reality, just as the stones are not part of the build- 
ing till they are dressed and fitted into place. Other 
workers do their part in the building, but without the 
rough-hewing their efforts would be in vain. Biology, 
for instance, is absolutely dependent on the preliminary 
work of the physical sciences, just as other more con- 
crete sciences are dependent on biology. The claim 
