THE NEW THEORY OF MATTER. 505 



natural selection. And what is true of sense perception is of course 

 also true of the intellectual powers which enable us to erect upon the 

 frail and narrow platform which sense perception provides, the proud 

 fabric of the sciences. 



Now natural selection only works through iitility. It encourages 

 aptitudes useful to their possessor or his species in the struggle for 

 existence, and, for a similar reason, it is apt to discourage useless apti- 

 tudes, however interesting they may be from other points of view, be- 

 cause, being useless, they are probably burdensome. 



But it is certain that our powers of sense perception and of calcu- 

 lation were fully developed ages before they were effectively employed 

 in searching out the secrets of physical reality — for our discoveries in 

 this field are triumphs but of yesterday. The blind forces of natural 

 selection which so admirably simulate design when they are providing 

 for a present need, possess no power of prevision ; and could never, ex- 

 cept by accident, have endowed mankind, while in the making, with a 

 physiological or mental outfit adapted to the higher physical investi- 

 gations. So far as natural science can tell us, every quality of sense 

 or intellect which does not help us to fight, to eat and to bring up chil- 

 dren, is but a by-product of the qualities which do. Our organs of 

 sense perception were not given us for purposes of research; nor was 

 it to aid us in meting out the heavens or dividing the atom that our 

 powers of calculation and analysis were evolved from the rudimentary 

 instincts of the animal. 



It is presumably due to these circumstances that the beliefs of all 

 mankind about the material surroundings in which it dwells are not 

 only imperfect but fundamentally wrong. It may seem singular that 

 down to, say, five years ago, our race has, without exception, lived and 

 died in a world of illusions ; and that its illusions, or those with which 

 we are here alone concerned, have not been about things remote or 

 abstract, things transcendental or divine, but about what men see and 

 handle, about those ' plain matters of fact ' among which common sense 

 daily moves with its most confident step and most self-satisfied smile. 

 Presumably, however, this is either because too direct a vision of phys- 

 ical reality was a hindrance, not a help, in the struggle for existence, 

 because falsehood was more useful than truth — or else because with so 

 imperfect a material as living tissue no better results could be attained. 

 But if this conclusion be accepted, its consequences extend to other 

 organs of knowledge besides those of perception. Not merely the 

 senses, but the intellect must be judged by it; and it is hard to see why 

 evolution, which has so lamentably failed to produce trustworthy in- 

 struments for obtaining the raw material of experience, should be 

 credited with a larger measure of success in its provision of the physio- 

 logical arrangements which condition reason in its endeavors to turn 

 experience to account. 



