306 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



mean that they are so constituted that the stimulus of one event 

 initiates changes which are so adjusted to other events as to lead 

 to survival in the struggle for existence. As this adjustment may- 

 be perfected and improved without discoverable limit, and as all 

 natural knowledge may be put to use, has not our belief that nature 

 is useful the same basis as our confidence in the stability of nature? 



If man were a pure intellect, our conviction that nature is orderly 

 might mean no more than that events are signs with a significance ; 

 but since man is not only a rational being but a living thing, each 

 event is not only a sign which tells us what to expect, but a 

 warning to tell us what, on peril of consequences, we should 

 prepare for. 



Our warrant for confidence in the stability of nature seems to 

 me to be the continuity of life ; and if we admit that life is worth 

 living, we must also admit that the evidence that the order of 

 nature is useful is identical with the evidence that there is order 

 in nature. 



If the artificial production of living beings out of inorganic 

 matter should ever prove that their fitness is "deducible" from 

 the physical properties of living matter, this would not mean that 

 their fitness is imaginary, but only that the properties of certain 

 forms of matter are useful to these forms of matter. 



Some tell us, however, that the passage from the properties of 

 matter to the phenomena of life is unthinkable ; but they who 

 infer that this passage is therefore impossible, must remember that 

 the passage from the properties of the stone I hold in my hand 

 to the fall of the stone would be equally unthinkable if I had no 

 experience of gravitation, for I find in nature no reason why it 

 should fall except my confidence that it will ; and the only test of 

 the objective value of this confidence is that which experience 

 gives. 



No great brilliancy or nimbleness of wit is called for to see that 

 the discovery that things do take place in order is no reason why 

 they should, or even why they should take place at all. They 

 who hold that, while mind is free, matter is bond, seem to mean 

 no more than that they know no reason why their mental events 

 must take place in order ; but unless they can show some reason 



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