NATURE S GOOD: A CONVERSATION 33 



It tells us that consciousness itself is such a cumu 

 lative and culminating natural event. Hence it is 

 relevant to the world in which it dwells, and its 

 determinations of value are not arbitrary, not obi 

 ter dicta, but descriptions of Nature herself. 



Recall the words of Spencer which Moore quoted 

 this morning : &quot; There is no pleasure in the con 

 sciousness of being an infinitesimal bubble on a 

 globe that is infinitesimal compared with the total 

 ity of things. Those on whom the unpitying rush 

 of changes inflicts sufferings which are often with 

 out remedy, find no consolation in the thought that 

 they are at the mercy of blind forces, which cause 

 indifferently now the destruction of a sun and now 

 the death of an animalcule. Contemplation of a 

 universe which is without conceivable beginning or 

 end and without intelligible purpose, yields no satis 

 faction.&quot; I am naive enough to believe that the 

 only question is whether the object of our &quot; con 

 sciousness,&quot; of our &quot; thought,&quot; of our &quot; contempla 

 tion,&quot; is or is not as the quotation states it to be. 

 If the statement be correct, pragmatism, like sub 

 jectivism (of which I suspect it is only a variation, 

 putting emphasis upon will instead of idea), is an 

 invitation to close our eyes to what is, in order to 

 encourage the delusion that things are other than 

 they are. But the case is not so desperate. Speak 

 ing dogmatically, the account given of the uni 

 verse is just not true. And the doctrine of evo- 



