BIOLOGICAL events are constantly and copiously available
as crude scientific data. Nor do they resist analysis more
than other data of equal complexity. Whatever difficulties
the biological system-maker encounters arise from the protopostu-
lates he adopts. Free biological systems from the excesses of cul-
tural imposition--vitalistic and teleological principles, abstrac-
tional chemism or mechanism--and they at once resemble all
other scientific products.

The fact remains, however, that biological events differ from
other types; accordingly we require a fitting pattern of study. In-
stead of isolating specific situations in order to trace out the
evolution of constructs from contacts with events, as we did in
the physiochemical subdomains, we shall make a broad survey of
the entire biological field and examine general problems concerning
its major system components--data, investigation, and interpre-
tation.

The abstractional urge to achieve ultimacy and generality has
led the biologist to develop the construct life to parallel the psy-
chologist's mind and the physicist's matter. In the physical sciences
the term matter does comparatively little harm, since reference
is soon made to things and events. In biology and psychology the
situation is more serious because the terms mind and life are not
treated as mere names for objects immediately encountered, but
as symbols for occult principles which presumably account for
observed events.

Although it is obvious that biologists study interacting or-
ganisms, they still claim credit for introducing the concept living

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