236 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



from them. In place of epistemology, that outworn relic of 

 rationalism, he would substitute a genetic investigation of the 

 relation of thinking to other modes of experiencing, together 

 with an inquiry into the specific conditions under which the 

 various thought-processes arise and subside. The absolutist's 

 condemnation of such procedure as 'merely psychological' he 

 would stigmatize as parallel to the vitalist's contempt for the 

 chemical investigation of organic processes as 'merely mechan- 

 ical.' The claim, that psychological investigation is essentially 

 and ultimately incapable of throwing light on the nature of mean- 

 ing, is, he would urge, as unfounded as the claim that vital reac- 

 tions are in essence not amenable to chemical analysis. 



A very similar conclusion regarding the investigation of the 

 nature of reality we might suppose to be the natural expression 

 of the instrumentalist attitude toward ontology. We might sup- 

 pose, for example, the pragmatist pointing out the dualism in 

 which absolutistic philosophy has generally issued, as a result of 

 the attempt to define reality in existential (as distinct from func- 

 tional) terms. Such a dualism, he might say, is practically in- 

 evitable; for the characterization of one form, or even aspect, of 

 being as real thereby implies the unreality of other forms or 

 aspects, and makes inexplicable the relation between the two 

 divisions. The dualism may, perhaps, be avoided, but only by 

 the expedient of maintaining that all being is real, in which case 

 the term 'real' loses all significance. From the instrumentalist 

 standpoint, the inquiry, What is reality? appears as futile as did 

 the question, What is the cause of the world? to Kant. And we 

 may imagine the pragmatist to urge of reality, even as Kant did 

 of causality, that it is a conception applicable to the particular 

 objects of experience in relation to each other, but utterly barren 

 if applied to existence as a whole. But the advocate of instru- 

 mentalism would go farther than Kant. Something like this, 

 perhaps, is the argument we may conceive him to advance. If 

 one asks the cause of a given event, a complete answer would 

 include the description of the whole preceding state of the uni- 



