ii SCIENTIFIC RECONSTRUCTION 279 



dent centres of consciousness, no difference of principle 

 emerges. There is only the further possibility of conflict 

 or harmony as between the feelings of different persons, 

 just as before there was the same possibility as between 

 different feelings of the same person. The rational 

 impulse in its practical application will remain the same. 

 It will be the impulse to constitute an order dominating 

 the world of mind as a whole in all the centres of conscious- 

 ness in which it lives, an order which as a whole satisfies the 

 mind, in which all constituent elements of satisfaction find 

 their place by their relations to one another and to the 

 whole, in which no discordant element is allowed a place. 

 The practical impulse is impulse guided by feeling, and if 

 there is a rational impulse in practice its work must lie in 

 the direction of establishing a harmony in the medium in 

 which it works, that is to say, in feeling wherever found, 

 and that, again, is as much as to say throughout the sentient 

 creation. The impulse of reason then is towards the estab- 

 lishment of a harmony throughout the world of mind, and 

 this harmony rests on two conditions, (i) on the harmony 

 of feeling as between one mind and another, and as between 

 any one mind at any moment and itself at any other 

 moment, (2) on the harmony between natural conditions 

 and the requirements of feeling whether those natural con- 

 ditions belong to the physical environment or to the 

 structure and functions of any given mind itself. 



To sum up. In cognition the rational impulse is to 

 appreciate a connected system. In practice the rational 

 impulse is to establish a harmonious system. What is 

 rational is the interconnection of elements in a pervading 

 unity. In cognition we have the impulse to discover this 

 interconnection as a permanent reality. In practice we 

 have the impulse to create it in the shape of the unity of 

 that Feeling on which generically all impulse rests. The 

 point of difference being understood, we may speak of the 

 general function of Reason as that of Correlation, or of 

 bringing elements together into a connected whole. 



The ethical order then is rational just in the same sense 

 as the cognitive order. That is to say, both have an ideal 

 towards which they work, and that ideal is one of the har- 



