304 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



otherwise, formulate more or less accurately and fully 

 what he believes he ought to do, and what he ought not 

 to do, to insure his self preservation and profit, indi- 

 vidually and collectively. Just as man's mental imag- 

 ery was gradually fitted to outward realities by the 

 profits of Tightness and the disasters of error, so his con- 

 duct, by the same process of addition and subtraction 

 was gradually fitted to his imagery. Hence man's so- 

 cial procedures are the legal symbols of his intelli- 

 gence. His prosperity and happiness are the proofs, 

 as well as the profits, of his mental and moral right- 

 ness ; they measure the truthfulness of his imagery and 

 the extent to which he has rightly, or constructively, 

 conformed his conduct to realities. 



Intelligence, therefore, is the recognition of these 

 demands of nature-action, and voluntary submission 

 to them. To act intelligently and profitably, man must 

 be disciplined in mind and body into conformity with 

 these realities of the outer world. He must distin- 

 guish between his limitations and his opportunities, 

 and recognizing them, deny himself the one, and 

 mould his thoughts and acts to the other. The disci- 

 pline to which he then voluntarily subjects himself is 

 the same discipline to which nature herself is subject 

 in the possible and the impossible. 



Here we may see nature's directive strategy in op- 

 eration on the field of mental life. For her warn- 

 ings of disaster and her invitations to profit bend man's 

 anarchistic will to constructive Tightness for his own 

 self-preserving and self-creating ends. And the 

 clearer, more comprehensive his vision is, the more 

 imperative are its demands; the more willing he is to 

 obey them, and the more he thrives in his obedience. 



