CHAP, xvi SYSTEMATIC THOUGHT 365 



forces of nature, among which the forces of his own 

 nature are not the least terrible and by far the most 

 incalculable. Nor if he could bend all nature to his 

 bidding would he yet understand fully to what end to use 

 his power. The world of human ends is not yet an ordered 

 community owning the sway of a single comprehensive 

 principle. It is a scene of bitter and perpetual strife, 

 where rival philosophies and fratricidal religions contend, 

 the crowd of ignobler passions often joining in the fight. 

 The reason that is within us forces us to hold that what- 

 ever is right and good cannot be destructive of other 

 things right and good, but rather must co-operate with 

 them to the same ultimate end. But human ethics as we 

 know them provide no such harmony. Half the energies 

 of the best men are taken up in combating others no less 

 well intentioned than themselves. It is no doubt right 

 provisionally that both should fight for their principles, 

 just as in war men on both sides, fighting for their own 

 country, are as individuals justified. So far the compre- 

 hensiveness of the modern spirit can bring in a certain 

 ethical harmony. But it is a harmony which deepens the 

 tragedy that it ennobles, and ennobles it only by pointing 

 to a still loftier harmony resting on the common nature 

 that underlies all differences and the greater far off end of 

 human kind which all actual effort but dimly apprehends. 

 Reason, as the impulse to harmonise and unify, keeps 

 constantly before us the ideal of a principle which should 

 explain the world, and a purpose which should rationalise 

 human effort. Man has not reached his goal, but he has 

 made some progress since the days when he chipped the 

 flint spear heads of the river-drifts. This progress is 

 most apparent on the side of knowledge, and we will 

 consider that first. 



2. In what has been said hitherto of the organisation of 

 human experience, we have had in view thought as it 

 exists among men in general, not thought as specially 

 developed in art, religion, science, or philosophy. We 

 have in short been dealing with " common-sense " know- 

 ledge and common-sense ways of thinking. We may 

 now briefly contrast the characteristics of common sense 



