198 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



efficient, it grows more indirect in the performance of its function, 

 this increasing indirectness being intimately correlated with an 

 increase in the organization and mutual dependence of concepts- 

 For in order that our conduct may be successful in meeting the 

 demands of a complex and changing life, it is necessary that the 

 ideas which prompt it should be consistent and systematic. 

 Accordingly there has arisen a characteristic and peculiar interest 

 in the organization and consistency of our concepts for its own 

 sake. Mental behavior comes to be a relatively independent 

 sort of conduct determined by its own specific end, intellectual 

 satisfaction. We must not, of course, fail to recognize that men 

 tal behavior can never become more than relatively independent 

 of overt conduct. Its roots are in practical and social life, and 

 the very condition of its health lies in an ever renewed contact 

 with, and adaptation to, the changing phases of such life. Never 

 theless it remains equally important for the understanding of 

 the evolution of conceptual thought, to take account of its grow 

 ing distinctiveness of character. It is naturally to be expected 

 that along with this transformation in the end of thought should 

 go certain modifications of its structure; and these we find. 



First, we have to note the existence of a whole class of concepts 

 which have arisen in direct response to the needs of mental 

 behavior, and whose function and meaning are determined w^ith 

 reference to the end of this behavior. Such are the whole body 

 of the abstract concepts of the sciences. While the development 

 of the different special sciences has had a profound effect on 

 practical life, yet the particular advances have been generally 

 made without reference to practical considerations. Nor can 

 the meaning of any single concept taken by itself be interpreted 

 in terms of overt conduct. Many of our scientific concepts have 

 doubtless arisen through the modification of previously existing 

 practical concepts by a sort of analogy as in the case of mathe 

 matical continuity and logical inclusion . In scientific concepts 

 content and import approach each other very closely, since the 

 conduct to which they refer is itself the discovery of logical 



