to the unsatisfactoriness of what he
described as "too hesitating and uncertain a treatment."[18]

But, in spite of so serious an omission, we may be glad to believe,
with our acute statesman-critic, that "there is permanent value in his
theories." If they indicate at all the direction in which scientific
thinking is to move, we shall soon have travelled a very long distance
from the days in which it was imagined that all vital phenomena might
be accounted for on merely materialistic and mechanical lines.

[1] "To this 'meteorite' theory the apparently fatal objection was
raised that it would take some sixty million years for a meteorite to
travel from the nearest stellar system to our earth, and it is
inconceivable that any kind of life could be maintained during such a
period."--Schaefer.

[2] Presidential Address to British Association, at Edinburgh (1912).

[3] _Man and the Universe_, p. 24.

[4] Prof. Wager.

[5] Dr. J. S. Haldane.

[6] Dr. A. R. Wallace. Article in _Everyman_, October 18th, 1912.

[7] Sir William Tilden. Letter to _The Times_, September 9th,1912.

[8] _Life and Matter_, p. 106.

[9] Pp. 132, f.

[10] P. 158.

[11] P. 160.

[12] Pp. 164, f.

[13] P. 166.

[14] P. 160.

[15] P. 198.

[16] Lecture at Birmingham, May, 1911.

[17] _Creative Evolution_, p. 280.

[18] _Hibbert Journal_, October, 1911.

{87}

CHAPTER IX

LATER SCIENCE (_continued_)

The leaders of the scientific thought of last century would have been
vastly surprised if they could have foreseen the results of the
investigations which were to be made into the constitution of matter
and the nature of life; but not even these would have amazed them so
much as would other investigations that were to be carried out in a yet
deeper and more mysterious region of experience. Perhaps it was
because science had been so busy about the more external things, that
it had seemed to have no time to spare for the thorough consideration
of that which is more truly vital to man than the matter which obeys or
opposes him, or even than the physical life which enables him to act,
in so far as he can, as its master. It was strange that the last thing
to be thought of should be his own personality, himself; the innermost
workings of his soul.

But if this profoundest problem has been neglected, it is to be
neglected no longer. Psychology has {88} already made good its claim
to be respectfully regarded as one o