Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/566

 550 CEITICAL NOTICES : a way of handling it for a particular purpose," "no abstract con- cept can be a valid substitute for a concrete reality except with reference to a particular interest in the conceiver " (p. 70). It should be recognised that the adoption of the evolutionist standpoint and acceptance of a reflex-action theory of mind commits us to "re- garding the mind as an essentially teleological mechanism," so that " the conceiving or theorising faculty functions exclusively for the sake of ends that do not exist at all in the world of impressions we receive by way of our senses, but are set by our emotional and practical subjectivity" (p. 117). The sciences, in short, are thoroughly teleological at bottom ; their " purpose is to conceive simply and to foresee " (p. 119). In so doing they may abstract from teleology, as from anything else, but the abstraction is itself teleological. The doctrine of the mind's functioning which Prof. James urges in these terms is, of course, one which may easily be misrepre- sented as a new piece of theological obscurantism, intended to palliate the substitution of blind faith for disinterested adhesion to truth at whatever cost ; and as it will certainly suit the purposes of some so to misunderstand it, that misrepresentation may almost be regarded as an accomplished fact. Yet it deserves to be pointed out that Prof. James' actual doctrine is not altogether new and almost indisputably true. The observation possunt quia posse videntur did not escape the sagacity of antiquity. And that the mind must be treated as a thoroughly teleological instrument is a conclusion which all modern science renders inevitable. Biologi- cally, the brain is primarily an exceedingly plastic organ for effecting exceedingly varied adaptations to the organism's ends and conditions of life : it would seem to follow at once that the mind's action must be teleologically vitiated throughout, and that there is not the slightest antecedent reason for supposing that it functions satisfactorily except with reference to the practical needs of the organism. If then there existed absolute truth, of which man was not the measure, it would be most natural that the human mind should prove inadequate to its comprehension. But fortunately there is no ground for the assertion of any such abso- lute truth. What passes for such is itself an abstraction, which may have its proper function in the system of human ends, or may be perverted, like other aberrant instincts, into a mode of function- ing useless, and even dangerous, to the whole organism. We are shut up then in a thoroughly anthropomorphic view of our ex- perience. But it is an unwarrantable inference that such a view is not adequate to our needs. And it seems a most valuable suggestion of Prof. James' that we may often make it adequate by trying and by proceeding on the assumption that it is adequate. Whether e.g. the world is knowable or not may be, like the question whether life is or is not worth living (p. 60), one of the truths that become true by our faith (p. 96), one of the cases where " our personal response," the eye with which ve regard the