XII 

 THE NATURALIST'S VIEW OF LIFE 



WILLIAM JAMES said that one of the privi- 

 leges of a philosopher was to contradict 

 other philosophers. I may add in the same spirit 

 that one of the fatalities of many philosophers is, 

 sooner or later, to contradict themselves. I do not 

 know that James ever contradicted himself, but I 

 have little doubt that a critical examination of his 

 works would show that he sometimes did so; I re- 

 member that he said he often had trouble to make 

 both ends of his philosophy meet. Any man who 

 seeks to compass any of the fundamental problems 

 with the little span of his finite mind, is bound at 

 times to have trouble to make both ends meet. 

 The man of science seldom has any such trouble 

 with his problems; he usually knows what is the 

 matter and forthwith seeks to remedy it. But the 

 philosopher works with a much more intangible and 

 elusive material, and is lucky if he is ever aware 

 when both ends fail to meet. 



I have often wondered if Darwin, who was a great 

 philosopher as well as a great man of science, saw 

 or felt the contradiction between his theory of the 

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