I3 8 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



doctrine that all ideas refer ultimately to modes of behavior, 

 that is, to correlations of stimulus and response. This we believe 

 to be substantially true, though with reservations which will be 

 noted hereafter; and we have met with no contemporary dis 

 cussion which seriously hinders its acceptance. No, our simple 

 contention is that the development of conduct, which is at the 

 same time the development of consciousness, is only remotely 

 and to a limited degree controlled by natural selection; that 

 is to say, that though this development has its beginnings in 

 hereditary tendencies whose perpetuation has been due to their 

 survival value, and though it must remain within the bounds set 

 by the necessity for the continuity of the organic stock, never 

 theless, as the process advances in complexity, comparative sur 

 vival values have less and less to do with its determination. 

 In man, at any rate, mental development is a social phenomenon; 

 and while natural selection is a very slow process, social evolution 

 is an exceedigly rapid one, so that the phases of the latter are 

 increasingly independent of the former s control. Surely this is 

 a moderate statement of the truth which is popularly exaggerated 

 to read, that among mankind the struggle for existence has wholly 

 given place to the struggle for happiness. 



An adequate recognition of these facts would, indeed, only 

 serve to strengthen the central doctrines of the pragmatist, for 

 it would enable them to be stated in more consistently psycho 

 logical terms. In his wholesome desire to explain consciousness 

 in the light of its relations to the organism as a whole, he has 

 lost sight of the great extent to which all other functions have 

 become subordinated to this one. Consciousness is not an end 

 in itself? As nearly as possible it is, for it contains within itself 

 the leading principle of its own development. It is consciously 

 approved satisfactoriness of the conduct to which an idea prompts 

 that determines its stability, and it is conscious dissatisfaction 

 that entails its modification. The dictum of the comparative 

 psychologist, of which pragmatism has made so much, that it 

 is only upon the failure of habitual adjustment that conscious- 



