1 1 2 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



empirical order reveals itself as a specific development 

 arising under conditions which show that it can be 

 at best only a partial rendering of certain aspects of 

 reality. 



As this rendering is found inadequate, as deeper experi- 

 ences and larger needs take shape, the second order is 

 formed, and we get the dualism of religion and common 

 experience. In this dualism the relativity of common 

 sense is insisted on, and the need for an absolute truth 

 proclaimed. But the truth which claims to be most secure 

 rests on methods which are most fragile. It is indeed 

 itself like common sense, a structure determined at bottom 

 by the response of the Mind to the conditions under which 

 it lives and grows, and though critical in that it demands 

 internal order and coherence, it passes without that self- 

 examination which would reveal the fundamental insecurity 

 of the whole fabric. 



(2) In this account it will not have escaped the critic 

 that we are assuming a good deal. Virtually, we have 



. .. 1 i & i r r 



been speaking as though reality in some or its mam features 

 were known to us. We have been assuming that there 

 is a certain environment, material or otherwise ; that living, 

 conscious organisms arise within this environment ; that 

 they respond to its changes and thereby preserve them- 

 selves and are able to produce and bring up their young; 

 that in this way, in accordance with the ordinary view of 

 heredity, new species are formed, organs develop and so 

 forth. Assuming all this we can in a general way under- 

 stand how the ordinary conception of the empirical order 

 might arise, and how it might have a certain practical 

 validity and yet be a very imperfect, possibly a wholly false 

 rendering of reality. But what guarantee have we for 

 any one of these assumptions? How do we know any- 

 thing about this reality which is distinct from the empirical 

 order ? The empirical order is that in which we ourselves 

 live, in which our thought moves and has its being. How 

 are we to get beyond it ? The reply is that in one sense 

 we never get beyond. Our own experience and our own 

 thought remain the sole basis of our knowledge. If they 



