Upon your conception of the single individual all your descriptions will be based, all your science established. For this reason, the human sciences, philosophy, ethics, psychology, politics, economics, can never be sciences at all. There can never be an exact science dealing with individual life. L’anatomia presuppone il cadavere; anatomy presupposes its corpse, says D’Annunzio. You can establish an exact science on a corpse, supposing you start with the corpse and don’t and don’t try to derive it from a living creature. But upon life itself, or any instance of life, you cannot establish a science.

–D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo