ii SCIENTIFIC RECONSTRUCTION 277 



rendering of reality that is the final implication of the 

 rational process. This, of course, is not to deny finality to 

 all truth whatever. There are, as shown above, truths as to 

 which no experience, direct or indirect, specific or general, 

 suggests a doubt. We may justly believe such truths to 

 be final, but we must distinguish belief in finality from 

 finality in belief. We may justly disbelieve - that any 

 reconstruction will affect the meaning or value of certain 

 parts of our thought, but this disbelief does not possess 

 final certainty. What has final certainty is the belief that 

 the development of rational thought yields advance in the 

 partial knowledge of reality, and not till this advance has 

 reached some higher point of view can more be said. 



8. There is, however, an ambiguity in the use of the 

 term 'rational impulse' which remains to be examined. 

 We speak of ' establishing, 5 of c seeking ' or of * coming to 

 appreciate' interconnection. These terms are not really 

 convertible. It is true that commonly we speak of c estab- 

 lishing ' a law, i.e. of discovering and proving some general 

 relation to be true. In this we speak as though we were 

 actively creating something. Yet the very point that we 

 establish is that the law holds, and always will hold, whether 

 we believe it or not. We are not then establishing or 

 creating the law. The only thing we are creating is a 

 thought in ourselves and in others which recognises that 

 law. It is only on this side and in this limited sense that 

 the reason is creative in the sphere of knowledge. In the 

 sphere of action it has a wider scope. For the rational 

 impulse has a practical as well as a theoretic application. 

 On the practical side its object is not merely to interpret or 

 appreciate existing interconnection, but to alter, transpose, 

 abolish, create or modify so as to form a new kind of 

 system, a new order in Nature or human life. To give a 

 generic name to the element which prompts and controls 

 action we may call it feeling, and say, again to use the term 

 in a very wide and generic sense, that feeling prompts to 

 such action as serves its satisfaction or removes causes of 

 dissatisfaction. In the permanent satisfaction of feeling 

 there is a relation, which we may call harmony, between 



