is said to be the sensation, or state of consciousness. In the words of Huxley: 66 What, after all, do we know of this terrible 'matter' except as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own consciousness? And what do we know of that 'spirit' over whose threatened extinction by matter a great lamentation is arising, except that it is also a name for an unknown and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states of consciousness?” 1o The physical world is now to be regarded as a construction which does not assimilate to itself the content of sensations, but enables one to anticipate them. The sensation signifies a contact to which science can provide a key for practical guidance. Experimentalism. § 118. This last phase of naturalism is an attempt to state a pure and consistent experimentalism, a workable theory of the routine of sensations. But it commonly falls into the error of the vicious circle. The hypothetical cause of sensations is said to be matter. From this point of view the sensation is a complex, comprising elaborate physical and physiological processes. But these processes themselves, on the other hand, are said to be analyzable into sensations. Now two such methods of analysis cannot be equally ultimate. If all of reality is finally reducible to • Quoted by Ward: Op. cit., I, p. 18. 9 sensations, then the term sensation must be in a new sense to connote a self-subsistent bei: and can no longer refer merely to a function certain physiological processes. The issue of the would be some form of idealism or of the exper ence-philosophy that is now coming so rapidly t the front.20 But while it is true that idealis has sometimes been intended, and that a radically new philosophy of experience has sometimes bee closely approached, those, nevertheless, who have developed experimentalism from the naturalistic stand-point have in reality achieved only a thinly disguised materialism. For the very ground of their agnosticism is materialistic.21 Knowledge of reality itself is said to be unattainable, because knowledge, in order to come within the order of nature, must be regarded as reducible to sensation; and because sensation itself, when regarded as part of nature, is only a physiological process, a special phenomenon, in no way qualified to be knowledge that is true of reality. § 119. Perhaps, after all, it would be as fair to the spirit of naturalism to relieve it of responsibil 20 There are times when Huxley, e. g., would seem to be on the verge of the Berkeleyan idealism. Cf. Chap. IX. 21 For the case of Karl Pearson, read his Grammar of Science, Chap. II. Epistemology ity for an epistemology. It has never thoroughly reckoned with this problem. It has deliberately Naturalistic selected from among the elements of exnot Systematic. perience, and been so highly constructive in its method as to forfeit its claim to pure empiricism; and, on the other hand, has, in this same selection of categories and in its insistence upon the test of experiment, fallen short of a thorough-going rationalism. While, on the one hand, it defines and constructs, it does so, on the other hand, within the field of perception and with constant reference to the test of perception. The explanation and justification of this procedure is to be found in the aim of natural science rather than in that of philosophy. It is this special interest, rather than the general problem of being, that determines the order of its categories. Naturalism as an account of reality is acceptable only so far as its success in satisfying specific demands obtains for it a certain logical immunity. These demands are unquestionably valid and fundamental, but they are not coextensive with the demand for truth. They coincide rather with the immediate practical need of a formulation of the spacial and temporal changes that confront the will. Hence naturalism is acceptable to common-sense as an account of what the every-day attitude to the environmen treats as its object. Naturalism is common-sers about the "outer world," revised and brought t to date with the aid of the results of science. I deepest spring is the organic instinct for the reality of the tangible, the vital recognition of the signif cance of that which is on the plane of interaction with the body. General § 120. Oddly enough, although common-sense is ready to intrust to naturalism the description of the situation of life, it prefers to deal otherwise with its ideals. Indeed, common-sense is not without a certain suspicion that naturalism is the advocate of moral reversion. It is recognized as the prophecy of the brute majority of life, of those considerations of expediency and pleasure that are the warrant for its secular moods rather than for its sustaining ideals. And that strand of life is indeed its special province. For the naturalistic method of reduction must find the key to human action among those practical conditions that are common to man and his inferiors in the scale of being. In short, human life, like all life, must be construed as the adjustment of the organism to its natural environment for 1 he sake of preservation and economic advance nent. Cynicism and 121. Early in Greek philosophy this general idea of life was picturesquely interpreted in two contrasting ways, those of the Cynic Cyrenaicism. and the Cyrenaic. Both of these wise men postulated the spiritual indifference of the universe at large, and looked only to the contact of life with its immediate environment. But while the one hoped only to hedge himself about, the other sought confidently the gratification of his sensibilities. The figure of the Cynic is the more familiar. Diogenes of the tub practised selfmortification until his dermal and spiritual callousness were alike impervious. From behind his protective sheath he could without affectation despise both nature and society. He could reckon himself more blessed than Alexander, because, with demand reduced to the minimum, he could be sure of a surplus of supply. Having renounced all goods save the bare necessities of life, he could neglect both promises and threats and be played upon by no one. He was securely intrenched within himself, an unfurnished habitation, but the citadel of a king. The Cyrenaic, on the other hand, did not seek to make impervious the surface |