Page:Blackwell 1898 Scientific method in biology.pdf/65

Rh are disguised by their simultaneous interaction. . . . These sciences of mechanics, physics, and chemistry have for their object to explain concrete phenomena, by reference to the properties of matter set forth in their generalizations.’

The following important dictum in regard to biology is thus laid down:

'It is the business of those occupied with that branch to assign living things in all their variety to the one set of forces recognised by the physicist and chemist. . . and its evolution' (that is, the evolution of life) 'as the necessary outcome of those forces—the automatic product of those same forces. . . . The discovery of the mechanical principle of evolution completed the doctrine' (of the material origin of life). '. . . It may be said to comprise the history of man, sociology, and psychology, viz., the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence.'

This ignoring by the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' of any deﬁnition of the word 'science,' and also the attempted reduction of life to a property of matter, is, however, too limited a view of Nature to be accepted by many thoughtful students of the present day. Turning, therefore,