254 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



ences. It has the same advantage as such formulae, namely, that 

 of an efficient instrument for the analysis of experience; and it 

 has likewise the same defects. When it is exalted, however, into 

 a metaphysical first principle, a result follows which is analogous 

 to that which we find proceeding from the similar exaltation of 

 the primary definitions of mechanics, that is to say, a dogmatic 

 absolutism quite as sterile when applied to the concrete issues of 

 human life as any materialism could well be. Our actual investi- 

 gations into the real nature of anything never aim at the descrip- 

 tion of this nature in its infinite entirety. On the contrary, they 

 are always undertaken from some definite point of view, and are 

 carried on with reference to some specific practical or theoretical 

 interest ; and it is this interest which furnishes a criterion for the 

 success of the investigation. But within these limits the investi- 

 gation may be said to have achieved success, when the descrip- 

 tion it furnishes of the real nature of the thing may be regarded 

 as if completely determinate; when, that is, its indeterminate- 

 ness is negligible with reference to the purpose for which the 

 investigation has been undertaken. 



Thus, from the standpoint of instrumentalism, both absolute 

 idealism and immediatism have erred in failing to recognize that 

 a general definition of reality can be given only in functional 

 terms. The claim of immediatism that reality changes, and 

 changes by virtue of the process of knowing, is indeed valid, if by 

 it be meant that the specific content to which the characteristic 

 'real* attaches changes from situation to situation, or from stage 

 to stage of scientific progress. But it is nevetheless untrue, that, 

 from the standpoint of any completed inquiry, the concrete reality 

 of that standpoint can be regarded as having been transformed in 

 the process of inquiry just finished; for, as has been pointed out, 

 reality means just that content which is regarded as unchanged 

 by the process. 



Let me add a last word in comment upon the claim of imme- 

 diatism to be regarded simply as a method, using as my text the 

 following declaration of Professor Dewey: "From the postulate 



