362 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



may mean instant cessation of these processes. The 

 balance advises us as to all this. All these instruments 

 of precision belong to science. They are examples 

 taken from thousands of the methods of " organized 

 common sense." By means of common sense, organized 

 and unorganized, all creatures that can move are en- 

 abled to move safely. The security of human life in its 

 relations to environment is a sufficient answer to the 

 " philosophic doubt " of Berkeley and Balfour as to the 

 existence of external Nature ; for if all phenomena were 

 within the mind, no one of them could be more dangerous 

 than another. A dream of murder is no more danger- 

 ous than a dream of a " pink tea," so long as its action 

 is confined to the limits of the dream. But the relation 

 of life to environment is inseparable and inexorable. 

 Cause and effect are perfectly linked. This is a world 

 of absolute verity, and its demand is absolute obedi- 

 ence. Life without concessions or conditions is the 

 philosopher's dream. 



What we know as pain is the necessary danger sig- 

 nal. Without pain, life conditioned by environment 

 would be impossible. Organic beings 

 need such stimulus to veracity. Those 

 dangers which are painless are the hard- 

 est to avoid ; the diseases which are painless are the 

 most difficult to cure. 



In this relation must science recognise the value of 

 ideals ? The ideal in the mind tends always to go over 



into action. The noble ideal discloses 

 Value of ideals. ..... ,,,/. T . / , 



itself in a noble life. It is part of the 



wisdom of each generation, its science as well as its reli- 

 gion, to form the ideals of the next. History is fore- 

 shadowed in these ideals before it is enacted on the 

 stage of life. An ideal is not a dream. A dream is 

 fleeting. An ideal has the will behind it. Its essential 



