250 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



But in order to appreciate the real significance of the imme- 

 diatist conception of reality as actual experience, we must recall 

 to mind the ontological theory in opposition to which it has been 

 urged. This is, of course, the theory of reality held by abso- 

 lute idealism. According to this theory, reality is, indeed, object 

 of knowledge; not, however, of knowledge as cumbered with its 

 contingent imperfections, but of knowledge as such, that is, in 

 so far as it is knowledge, or conforms to the eternal ideal of 

 what knowledge should and must be. Or, again, it is the object 

 of absolute knowledge, the content of a single all-embracing ex- 

 perience in which every element is what it is by reason of its 

 relation to and determination by every other element. It is a 

 perfect system, no part of which can be abstractly considered 

 without falsification. Moreover, it embraces not simply relations 

 between contemporary states but between successive events. 

 The processes of the cosmos constitute one evolution, every 

 stage of which is an essential aspect of the system of reality. 

 Just as the human organism may be understood to embrace, not 

 simply the set of tissues and organs belonging to a man at one 

 stage of his development but the whole life-process itself from the 

 beginning to the end of individual existence; so reality is under- 

 stood to be limited to no single cross-section of evolution, it 

 embraces the universe throughout all its transformations. It is 

 in this sense that it is described as eternal. Change, indeed, is 

 real, but it is not reality which changes; for reality is precisely 

 that which includes all changes within itself. Accordingly, as 

 applied to any particular thing or event, reality means its nature 

 as an element of the infinite system, and as determined thus by 

 its relation to all other things or events. The real individual is 

 the infinitely determinate individual, determinate, moreover, 

 not simply for the thought of any particular inquiring conscious- 

 ness, but for the absolute thought which is the norm to which 

 every rational inquiry submits itself for final judgment. 



In criticism of this theory, pragmatism urges that such a con- 

 ception of reality and truth must remain utterly inoperative as a 



