44 NATURE S GOOD: A CONVERSATION 



for value, but only when it produces a living organ 

 ism that has settled preferences and endeavors. 

 The mere happening of complexity, health, adjust 

 ment, is all that Nature effects, as rightly called 

 accident as purpose. But when Nature pro 

 duces an intelligence ah, then, indeed Nature has 

 achieved something. Not, however, because this in 

 telligence impartially pictures the nature which 

 has produced it, but because in human conscious 

 ness Nature becomes genuinely partial. Because 

 in consciousness an end is preferred, is selected for 

 maintenajice ju andjbeca.nsp intelligence pictures not 

 in 



conditions and obstacles of_the^ Continued mainte- 

 njmce ofjbhe^sejected good. For in an experience 

 where values are demonstrably precarious, an in 

 telligence that is not a principle of emphasis and 

 valuation (an intelligence which defines, describes, 

 and classifies merely for the sake of knowledge,) is 

 a principle of stupidity and catastrophe. 



As for Grimes, it is indeed true that problems 

 are solved only where they arise namely, in ac 

 tion, in the adjustments of behavior. But, for 

 good or for evil, they can be solved there only with 

 method ; and ultimately method is intelligence, and 

 intelligence is method. The larger, the more hu 

 man, the less technical the problem of practice, the 

 more open-eyed and wide-viewing must be the cor 

 responding method. I do not say that all things 



