LIFE FROM THE BIOLOGIST'S STANDPOINT 189 



nature to another, no answer is forthcoming any more than there is 

 to the question as to how or by virtue of what quality or force it senses 

 at all; or to the question as to how or by virtue of what quality the 

 properties of salt are produced by the sodium and the chlorine. It 

 may be galling to find that we must accept many things as by free 

 grace, so to speak ; but this does not alter the fact. 



It is the penalty we pay for belonging to nature at all. If one is 

 galled by the fact and so tries to escape it, the course open to him is that 

 taken by the oriental occultist who sees the natural order as a clog to the 

 nobler but invisible real order and hence as a thing to be got rid of as 

 soon as possible. 



At a few places in this discussion it has seemed as though the course 

 we were on would drag our physical science back to the primal 

 chaos of mere sensations and facts from which it seems to have come. 

 In truth, though, now that we can look at the whole situation as from 

 a hilltop, how thoroughly familiar, how reassuring, how in accord 

 with the best, most fruitful endeavor of all the ages of human history 

 it is seen to be. " Nur in der Erfahrung ist Wahrheit " (only in 

 experience is truth), said Kant. Modify this to the extent of making 

 it say " Ohne Erfahrung ist keine Wahrheit " (without experience is 

 no truth), and can any but a sophisticated mind doubt its truthfulness? 



If nature is as true to herself and to man as she seems ; if the body 

 of evidence gathered by centuries of laborious science to the effect that 

 law and order do prevail throughout the universe ; and if the universe 

 is as inexhaustible in variety and power as experience indicates, then 

 how securely we stand on the truth that struggled to expression in 

 Saint Paul's prophetic words : " Faith is the substance of things not 

 seen " ! 



There seems to be no question about what experience alone can 

 do since there is no such thing so far as we can see. Nor is there any 

 question about what faith alone can do since there is no such thing. 

 Experience appears to exist because of or through faith, and faith to 

 exist because of or through experience. So far as production has 

 reference to the fact that something exists now that did not exist 

 previously, experience and faith must, it would seem, be said to be 

 generative inter se. We have no ground whatever for saying that 

 either preceded the other in time. Even the simplest sensation, the 

 starting point of experience, can not be conceived in any intelligible 

 terminology that does not recognize it as belonging to some organ- 

 ism. What sane person would talk of a sensation absolutely inde- 

 pendent of an organism? But an organism of the simplest imagin- 

 able sort 7 must still have some measure of fidelity, of faithfulness to 



7 This remark need not be interpreted to mean that the simplest conceivable 

 organisms actually did begin in time. For my part, I am of opinion that biol- 

 ogy has reached the point where the suggestions of such cosmically-minded men 



