Page:Philosophical Review Volume 7.djvu/437

423 as the product of one's own mind. But the origin of theory is that of all knowledge, and the test of all guides is experience. All principles are tenable which work properly. Their function is to furnish unity in action. Theory best embodies this unity of aim, and so-called non-theoretical forms implicitly represent theory. Theory is the consummation of man's knowledge of his principles of conduct; all his principles of action are theoretical expressions for the conditions under which his actions can be realized; all his actions are simply the realization of these principles. We shall see the truth of this if we consider practical activity as it presents itself in ordinary life. Practice may be taken as identical with action in general, and all action will be found in its last resort to be the medium by which ends are realized. Ends may be derived from two broadly distinguishable sources. We may seek to fulfil an end which we determine simply by ideas which belong to us as reason-constituted beings; such, for instance, are æsthetic, imaginary, and moral ideas. On the other hand, our end may be determined by a consideration of the nature and conditions of the external world in which our end is to be realized, as, e.g., when we seek to make anything or engage in any enterprise. In the case of the realization of the second form of end it seems impossible to find where theory ends and practice begins, for we must be acquainted, not merely with the end as such, but with all that lies between the first step and final completion. In the case of the first kind of ends the question is more difficult, but the answer is the same. Our position briefly is that all conduct in the narrow sense of the term presupposes and expresses a theory of life ; morality is the deliberate and responsible working out into details of a certain conception of the import and purport of human existence; hence, once again practice and theory are one and inseparable. It is, therefore, wrong to maintain the self-dependence of theory, its independence of practice. In moral and spiritual life, for instance, theory is nothing but the deepening of our consciousness of these aspects of experience. It cannot come into existence except in the form of actual activity. Law, dogma, and doctrine are not mere excresences on experience, but are inevitable interpretative expressions of it. Hence, the only legitimate method to enlarge and if need be to criticise existing theories, is first of all to share with the sincerest intensity the life's experience. out of which they arose.

The problem raised by Huxley in his Romanes lecture is that of the relation of the evolutionary concepts, 'fitness,' 'struggle for existence' and 'natural selection' to the ethical concepts, (1) The fittest survives in the ethical, as truly as in the cosmic process. There is no ultimate dualism between man and nature. Man is an organ of the cosmic process in effecting its own progress, and this progress consists essentially in making over a part of the environment by relating it more intimately to the environment as a whole.