No. 514] 



ABE SPECIES REALITIES f 



60J 



plexing as they are to perception and imagination, do not 

 deter us from the ascription of full reality to aggregates. 

 A forest is not less real than a single tree; a swarm of 

 bees is as circumscribed a reality as a single insect. The 

 fauna or flora of an entire continent is surely conceived 

 as a definite objective reality as much as though it were 

 the smallest, the most homogeneous of units. The solar 

 system is a reality as truly as is a single planet: the 

 planet as truly as is the dewdrop; the dewdrop as truly, 

 nay, more truly than is the atom. 



I say that in adult life, and especially after thorough 

 scientific training, we correct the naive error of ascribing 

 reality only to that which is obviously a unit or which has 

 been vividly perceived. But I deem that, beyond ques- 

 tion, we are frequently subject to lapses in our thought, 

 lapses into the child consciousness in which the unitary 

 object of perception seems to us the only true reality. 



The truth is that if species are denied reality because 

 they are pluralities instead of units, individuals have 

 absolutely no right to a better status. Individuals are 

 pluralities. We may recall President Jordan's humorous 

 refutation of Descartes 's celebrated maxim: I think 

 therefore I am. Descartes, said Jordan, had no right to 

 consider himself a unitv; he had no right to the singular 

 pronoun. Descartes was an aggregate of cells; these are 

 the active units. He must at least have said: we think, 

 therefore, we are. 



Of course the cells, too, are not really units, but again, 

 are aggregates,— nay, they are aggregates of aggregates 

 of aggregates of aggregates at least; they are, moreover, 



