142 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



to say, desired as ultimately good. The necessary or convenient 

 means of obtaining them are then desired for their sake. Promi- 

 nent among these means is the appropriate conduct. Conduct 

 is generally more efficient when it is consistent ; hence consistency 

 comes to be desired as a means to efficiency. And then, as in 

 the case of any other means to an end, the end drops out of 

 consciousness, and the means is desired for its own sake. 1 It is 

 particularly to be noted, that by this last step it is not meant 

 that the criterion of consistency becomes independently sufficient 

 to establish truth. Intellectual interests are simply a new class 

 of interests to be provided for normally bound up very closely 

 with the rest, it is true. Intellectual values are simply one class 

 among others, varying greatly in importance from man to man. 

 The criterion of consistency, if pushed to extremes, is as likely 

 to lead to error as any other. 



Once again, therefore, we find the emergence of a new end, or 

 controlling resultant, evaluated in terms of a previously existing 

 end in this case, the total satisfaction resulting from each par- 

 ticular voluntary act. Here also the assumption appears to us 

 to be unwarranted. 



When we examine the relation in which a belief stands to a 

 particular course of conduct dictated by it, it is obvious that this 

 relation has more than one side. The truth of the belief tends, 

 in general, to ensure the success of the conduct, and the success 

 of the conduct tends, in general, 2 to confirm the truth of the 



We are speaking here of a similarity of scientific standpoint and method. The 

 similarity of results is nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in the following 

 extract, though similar quotations might be multiplied almost indefinitely: "Sat- 

 isfactoriness has to be measured by a multitude of standards, of which some, for 

 aught we know, may fail in any given case; and what is more satisfactory than 

 any alternative in sight, may to the end be a sum of pluses and minuses, concerning 

 which we can only trust that by ulterior corrections and improvements a maximum 

 of the one and a minimum of the other may some day be approached." (Ibid, 

 p. 56.) This is what we have alluded to as the dead level of utilitarian theory. 



2 If knowledge were perfect, it would, no doubt, suffice to guarantee the success 

 of every particular endeavor in the hopeless case we would tamely submit. 

 But such knowledge as we have cannot do this. There is always a margin of un- 

 controllable variation. Contrariwise, the particular non-fulfilment of expectation 



