CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 3825 
teport of the Conference of Delegates of Corresponding Societies held 
at Birmingham, September 11 and 16, 1913. 
Chairman . : . Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, F.R.S. 
Vice-Chairman . . Sir George Fordham. 
Secretary . f . W. P. D. Stebbing, F.G.S. 
First Meerine, Thursday, Sepiember 11. 
Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell presided, the Corresponding Societies Committee 
being represented by the Rev. J. O. Bevan, Sir Edward Brabrook, Principal 
Griffiths, Mr. J. Hopkinson, and Mr. W. P. D. Stebbing. 
The business was opened by the reading of the Report of the Corresponding 
Societies Committee. The Chairman then delivered his Address, entitled :— 
Utility and Selection. 
The greatest paradox of philosophy is that each of us is the only begetter of 
the universe in which we live, that the world is an extension of the individual 
mind. The hardness and roundness of a pebble exist because we think they 
exist; the stars of the high heavens twinkle in us; pain and pleasure, revolving 
time and illimitable space are qualities or categories of our mind. I have called 
it the greatest paradox, for a paradox is great in the proportion that it is true. 
The universe is a creation of the human mind, an artifact of the instrument that 
apprehends it. I am not here to discuss philosophical realism and idealism, or 
to expound the converse of the paradox. Those who lose themselves in the airy 
mists of philosophy are not to be pitied; they may contentedly play by them- 
selves the game of Hamlet with Polonius, doubling the parts. 
Hamlet : Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a message from 
the dead? 
Polonius : By the mass, and ’tis like a message from the dead. 
Hamlet : Methinks it is a spirit. 
Polonius: It is disembodied like a spirit. 
Hamlet: Or like a spook. 
Polonius: Very like a spook. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, ui. 2.' 
But I would remind you that if there be an objective reality, as we all must 
believe, of which our universe is a pale reflection, that reflection owes its 
character and its quality as much to the powers and imperfections of the 
reflecting instrument as to the objective reality. Our attempt to comprehend 
nature can be no more than an attempt to recreate it within the categories of 
the human mind. ] 
Man has been defined as a rational animal, and there is no more persistent 
quality of his mind than the craving for teleological interpretation. He is uncom- 
fortable in the presence of any phenomenon, until he is satisfied that it fulfils 
a purpose which he conceives to be useful. This point of view dominated the 
theologians and the rationalists of the eighteenth century, and in the nineteenth 
it led Darwin to one of the greatest triumphs of the human mind, and filled the 
armoury of the opponents of Darwinism. 
If we can assign utility to a character in an individual, we agree readily that 
its possession by most individuals may be an advantage to the species in the 
struggle for existence. We agree also that as characters vary in individuals 
(whether the variations be large or small, continuous or discontinuous, does not 
affect the argument), the average of these in the members of the species may be 
intensified in the course of generations, if they fit the environment, or smeared 
and obliterated if they are out of gear with the environment. Having gone so 
far, we have accepted the main principle of Darwin’s theory of evolution, a 
principle so harmonious with our mental disposition that it has become almost 
1 Unauthorised edition. 
