HUXLEY, AND THE PROBLEM OF THE NATURALIST 45 



that the " external world " to which plants and animals respond is 

 also to be resolved into changes in their physical basis, I am 

 quite willing to admit this possibility ; as I am ready to admit 

 that, for anything I know to the contrary, the reality of both the 

 external world and the physical basis itself may consist in being 

 perceived or known, but I hold it unwise to forget that the same 

 daily experience which justifies our confidence in the orderly se- 

 quence of external nature also warrants the assumption that their 

 external world is the same as ours. The question whether its 

 reality is ideal or material or both has no more to do with this 

 purely practical confidence than has the presence or absence in a 

 dog or an oak tree of conscious belief in it. > 



They who hold the faith that science will some day be able to 

 demonstrate, in the structure of the brain, the origin of such actions 

 as writing .a review of Huxley's Essays, are quite welcome to their 

 faith ; but I hold, as a purely practical matter, that they may find 

 out in a much shorter way why I have written this article ; and 

 I also hold that this is likely to be the case for some considerable 

 time. I also believe with Aristotle that the most practical way 

 within our reach of studying that adjustment between the organism 

 and the external world — that fitness — which constitutes life, is to 

 learn all we can about the physical basis and all we can about its 

 fitness ; and I hold fast to this purely practical confidence without 

 any faith in the unknown biology of the distant future, and most 

 assuredly without any desire to discount it. 



I must ask, however, what reason there is for thinking that 

 belief that my volition is both real and part of the cosmic process 

 is logically absurd. 



The greatest of all my many great debts to Huxley is the 

 clear perception that there is no antagonism between belief that 

 all the phenomena of nature, including those of life and mind, are 

 mechanical, and my confidence in the value of my reason. If 

 Huxley is right in the assertion that mechanical principles are 

 nothing more than generalized statements of our experience, — as 

 I am convinced that he is, — and if the widest of all generaliza- 

 tions from my experience is that my volition counts ; how can 

 belief in the value of my reason be logically absurd .? May not 

 the logical absurdity lie with them who hold that proof that my 



