No. 552] AUTONOMY OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 715 



qualities of a line, the geometrician could predict the 

 properties of the angle between two lines, if he had yet 

 to discover the possibility of angles? Knowing angles, 

 he could probably tell in advance not a few of the proper- 

 ties of triangles, but can any one imagine, on the basis of 

 this information alone, the relations which enable us to 

 measure the heights of trees we have never climbed, or 

 the distances of sun and moon? On the contrary, the 

 history of the subject shows that the mechanist is now 

 able to predict the motions of bodies, and the properties 

 of configurations, not because he deals exclusively with 

 prediction, but because he has made certain valid as- 

 sumptions concerning space, and by deduction has dis- 

 covered their consequences. He deals with controlled 

 materials, but the trick of augury has no other secret 

 than knowledge. 



The Specifically Biological Problem 

 If we reject the classification of biology necessitated 

 by a belief in the fundamental disorderliness of its phe- 

 nomena, two mutually exclusive views remain to be con- 

 sidered. Fortunately for the biologist the discord be- 

 tween them is quite unnecessary, for biology may be 

 physics and chemistry and autonomous at the same time. 



Some of the most fruitful and illuminating discussions 

 in recent years have emanated from biological chemists 

 and physicists, and it is hard to follow the literature on 

 these subjects without sensing the enormous possibili- 

 ties with which it is freighted. It must not be supposed, 

 however, that proof of the purely physical-chemical na- 

 ture of vital processes will show that living things are m 

 any way different than they really are. Whether analy- 

 sis can subtract qualities from things certainly seems 

 an idle question, vet we are constantly being told that the 

 reduction of the phenomena of life to a chemical-physical 

 basis will demonstrate that living things are, after all, 

 not alive ! . . 



Anatomical and histological analysis of a horse is m- 



