Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/82

78 past systems of philosophy, perhaps all possible systems, have been thrown back into the realm of literature, of poetry, no longer controlling the life of action, which rests on fact.

This conflict of tendencies in the individual has become a conflict among individuals as each is governed by a dominant impulse. The cause of tradition becomes that of theology;—for men have always claimed a religious sanction for their own individual bit of cosmic philosophy. Just as each man in his secret heart, the center of his own universe, feels himself in some degree the subject of the favor of the mysterious unseen powers, so does society in all ages find a mystic or divine warrant for its own attitude towards life and action, whatever that may be.

The nervous system of man, inherited from that of the lower animals, may be regarded as primarily a means of making locomotion safe. The reflex action of the nerve center is the type of all mental processes. The sensorium, or central ganglion, receives impressions from the external world representing, in a way, various phases of reality. The brain has no source of knowledge other than sensation. All human knowledge comes through human experience. The brain, sitting in darkness, has the primary function of converting sensory impressions into impulses to action. To this end the motor nerves carry impulses outward to the muscles. The higher function of nerve action, which we call the intellect, as distinguished from simple reflex action and from instinct, is the choice among different responses to the stimulus of external realities. As conditions of life become more complex, the demands of external realities become more exacting. It is the function of the intellect to consider and of the mind to choose. The development of the mind causes and permits complexity in external relations. Safety in life depends on choosing the right response to external stimulus. Wrong choice leads to failure or to death.

From the demands of natural selection results the intense practicality of the mental processes. Our senses tell us the truth as to external nature, in so far as such phases of reality have been essential to the life of our ancestors. To a degree, they must have seen 'things as they really are' else they should not have lived to continue the generation. Our own individual ancestors through all the ages have been creatures of adequate accuracy of sensation and of adequate power of thought. Were it not so they could not have coped with their environment. The sensations which their brains translated into action contained enough of absolute reality to make action safe. That our own ordinary sensations and our own inductions from them are truthful in their essentials, is proved by the fact that we have thus far safely trusted them. Science differs from common sense mainly in the perfection of its tools. That the instruments of precision used in science give us further phases of reality is shown by the fact that we can trust