PRESENT-DAY BIOLOGICAL THOUGHT 61 



evitably condition the movement of ideas, that one's 

 imagination content is derivable from one's effective ex- 

 perience. Here is a philosophy that is working a trans- 

 formation on the thought of the day. How ? By abandon- 

 ing the search for lofty peaks of final causation, from 

 which to triangulate the universe according to logical 

 necessity; emphasizing ideas that shall not only square 

 with the facts as we find them, but shall create others." 



However this may be the attitude of the average bio- 

 logical worker, there is another group, none the less able, 

 whose logic leads them another way. 



I cannot help mentioning here a conversation with a 

 scientific surgeon held a year or two ago. A matter of 

 surgical procedure was being discussed. The surgeon ad- 

 mitted the force of his opponent's argument. In fact, he 

 said, "There isn't a flaw in the reasoning. I accept the 

 logic of it, and yet, if this happend to one near and dear 

 to me, I would not follow the dictates of my logic merely 

 to make a logical conclusion come true." 



To me it seems that here is the crux of a vast amount 

 of conflict in the scientific world. One man will follow 

 consistently wherever his logic leads him, feeling that he 

 cannot do otherwise; the other feels that every problem 

 is to be judged entirely by itself, without relation to the 

 larger issues of history, philosophy, psychology, logic, in 

 fact, without regard to all that which has made our entire 

 background of education and training what it is. 



Professor John Dewey, in sketching the development 

 of the philosophies in various countries, laid heavy stress 



