Dewey's interest as a philosopher centres, from first to last, upon knowledge and the knowing process. All that is vital in his ethical, social, and educational theories depends ultimately upon the special interpretation of the function of knowledge which constitutes his chief claim to philosophical distinction. Dewey's logical theory, as has been seen, was the natural and inevitable outcome of his demand for an empirical and 'psychological' description of thought as a 'transformatory' process working actual changes in reality. If in the beginning of his career he found the problem of the nature of knowledge all-important for his own interests, he came in the end to regard it as the problem of problems for all philosophers. There is no mistaking Dewey's conviction that the special interpretation of knowledge which he advocates opens the door to important advances in philosophical speculation, while it ends all discussion of those pseudo-problems which result from a false, epistemological formulation of the function of knowledge.

The history of the development of Dewey's thought, set forth in the preceding chapters, does not pretend to furnish an adequate estimate of his philosophical system. The two questions, of origin and worth, are, after all, distinct. The genetic account of Dewey's theory of knowledge may serve to make its bearings and implications better understood, may reveal its deeper meaning and import, but the final estimate of its value as a philosophical hypothesis depends on other considerations. In this final chapter, it is proposed to deal with the question of the positive value of functionalism as a working hypothesis. This criticism may also serve to gather together the threads of criticism and comment which run through the previous chapters, and reveal the general ground upon which the writer's opposition to Dewey's theory is based.

There can be no question that Dewey's theory of knowledge rests, finally, upon the doctrine of 'immediate empiricism;' upon his belief in "the necessity of employing in philosophy the direct descriptive method that has now made its way in all the natural sciences...."[281] This doctrine is clearly stated in the first essay reviewed in this study, "The Psychological Standpoint" (1886). To quote again from that essay: "The psychological standpoint as it has developed itself is this: all that is, is for consciousness or knowledge. The business of the psychologist is to give a genetic account of the various elements within this consciousness, and thereby fix their place, determine their validity, and at the same time show definitely what the real and eternal nature of this consciousness is."[282] The descriptive method here advocated does not differ, as an actual mode of procedure, from that of Dewey's later empiricism. It lies at the basis of all his speculation, earlier as well as later, and is undoubtedly the most important single element in his philosophical system.

In "The Psychological Standpoint" Dewey ascribes the failure of the earlier empiricists to their desertion of the direct descriptive method (a criticism repeated frequently in later essays). Locke, for instance, instead of describing experience as it actually occurs, interprets it in terms of certain assumed simple sensations, the products of reflection. These non-experienced elements, Dewey believes, have no place in a purely empirical philosophy.

But the empiricist must deal in some manner with the products of reflection. The atoms of chemistry and the elements of the psychologist are not experienced facts, but still they play a valuable, indispensable role in the technique of the sciences. What is to be done with them? It must be made to appear that they are valid within knowledge, but invalid elsewhere. This leads to a separation of knowing from other modes of experiencing, and the descriptive method is depended upon to maintain the empirical validity of the separation. It has been seen how Dewey's attempt to interpret knowledge led gradually to a distinction between the 'cognitional' and the 'non-cognitional' processes of experience.

The completed theory of knowledge depends for its validity upon the distinction thus established between knowing (as reflective thought) and the practical attitudes of life. The concepts, elements, and other apparatus of reflection are employed, it is said, only when there is thinking,—and this is only occasionally. Theory is an instrument to be used in connection with that special activity, reflective thought, the general aim of which is the furtherance of the practical ends of life.

One fairly obvious difficulty with this separation of reflection from the other life activities is that the 'direct descriptive method,' as here employed, is itself reflective. How does it come, then, that this particular method achieves such an effective hegemony over the other modes of reflection? The 'descriptive method,' as the method of pure experience, is made to determine or supplant all other methods. It defines the limits and aims of conceptual systems; it marks out the limits, aims, and tests of reflective thought in general. How, it may be asked, does the 'direct descriptive method' escape the limitations which it imposes upon the other forms of reflective thought?

It has been seen that in Dewey's view logic is subsidiary to psychology. But psychology (his psychology) results from the application of the 'descriptive method' to experience. The 'descriptive method,' it may be inferred from this, is not subject to logical criticism. On the contrary, it is the basis of all logic. Logic, as the criticism of categories, is confined to the study of the instrumental concepts as functioning within the knowledge experience, and its limits are set by descriptive psychology. There is, apparently, no means by which the 'direct descriptive method' can itself be brought under criticism.

Dewey says: "By our postulate, things are what they are experienced to be; and, unless knowing is the sole and only genuine mode of experiencing, it is fallacious to say that Reality is just and exclusively what it is or would be to an all-competent all-knower; or even that it is, relatively and piece-meal, what it is to a finite and partial knower."[283] Reality is not simply what it is known as, for it is experienced in other ways than by being known. "But I venture to repeat that ... the inferential factor must exist, or must occur, and that all existence is direct and vital, so that philosophy can pass upon its nature—as upon the nature of all of the rest of its subject-matter—only by first ascertaining what it exists or occurs as."[284]

Reflection, then, is not designed to furnish an insight into the nature of things. Acquaintance with reality must be obtained, not by reflecting upon it, but by describing it as it occurs. Whatever else this may mean, it certainly aims at demonstrating the superiority of description to the supposedly less effective modes of thought. It cannot be conceded, however, that 'description,' as employed by Dewey, is non-reflective, or super-reflective. If things are not what they are known as, then they are not what they are known as to a describer. The point of this objection will be obvious if it is remembered that it is the method of 'direct description' which enables Dewey to distinguish between the 'cognitional' and the 'non-cognitional' activities of life, and make thought the servant of action. If Dewey's descriptive method is not reflective, then there is no such thing as reflection.

Passing for the moment from this criticism, which is not apt to be convincing in such abstract form, it may be well to consider for a time the psychology upon which Dewey's logical theory is grounded: the psychology which is established by the 'direct descriptive method.'

From the standpoint of the nervous correlates of experience, Dewey's theory involves two postulates: first, that customary conduct is carried on by an habitual set of nervous adjustments, and, second, that reflection is a process whereby new reactions are established when habitual modes of response fail to meet a critical situation.

It must be clearly recognized that, so far as the nervous system is concerned, the scheme is highly speculative. The advance made by physiology towards an analysis and understanding of the minute and specialized parts of the nervous organism has necessarily been slow and uncertain. Whatever plausibility Dewey's theory possesses must depend, not upon the technical results of neurology, but upon the external evidence which seems to justify some such scheme of nervous organization.

An examination of this evidence shows that it falls under two main heads: (1) facts drawn from the observation of the outward behavior of the organism, and (2) facts derived from an introspective analysis of the thought-process.

The study of behavior shows that man thinks only now and then. Most of his conduct is, literally, thoughtless. It is said that thought is outwardly manifested by a characteristic attitude, marked by hesitation and an obvious effort at adjustment. The introspective analysis of the thought-process shows that it alone, among experiences, is accompanied by analysis, abstraction, and mediation. Again, both the internal and external evidence show that a puzzling situation (whose nervous correlate is a conflict of impulses) is the stimulus which awakens thought. These are important items in the list of evidence which supports the functional theory.

It would be a tedious and unnecessary task to subject each of these bits of evidence to empirical criticism. It will be better to deal with them by showing that they do not necessarily imply functionalism, since they are compatible with a psychology directly opposed to the fundamental assumptions of Dewey's theory.

It is doubtless true that men think only occasionally and with some reluctance. This is a common observation. What is to be made of this intermittance of thought? The evidence merely shows that man is more wide awake, energetic, and alert at some times than at others. On these occasions every faculty of the organism is in operation, higher as well as lower centres are pitched to a high degree of responsiveness, not at hap-hazard, to be sure, but apropos—tuned to the situation. In saying that men think only now and then nothing more is necessarily implied than that men are for the most part sluggish and indifferent, and the periods of high intensification of the normal processes contrast sharply with the habitual lethargy of conduct.

Against Dewey, it will be maintained here that thought cannot be defined as a special kind of activity considered from the side of the organism. The life processes are constantly welded into a single unified activity, which may, as a whole, be directed upon different objects. Thus, from the side of its objects, this life activity may be called eating, running, reading, and whatever else one chooses. Thinking, from this standpoint, may be defined as the direction of effort upon symbols and abstract terms. But thinking in this case would be identified on the basis of its content, not in terms of special nervous activities in the organism. Whether, therefore, thinking signifies that intense periodical activity which has been noted, or preoccupation with a certain kind of subject-matter, it in no case implies the operation of a special organic faculty of the type described by Dewey.

But, again, it is said that true reflection is marked by a certain characteristic bodily attitude, which bespeaks inner conflict and a search for adjustment. This contention seems to have little ground in fact. The puzzled, hesitating, undecided expression that is usually supposed to betray deep cogitation may in fact mean simply hesitation and bewilderment,—the need for thought, rather than its presence. The expression reveals a certain degree of incompetence and sluggishness in the individual concerned, and signifies a lack of wide-awakeness and responsiveness. A student puzzling over his algebra, a speaker extemporizing an argument, a ball-player using all his resources to defeat the enemy, have attitudes so unlike that no analysis could discover in them a common form of expression. And yet it would be madness to deny that thinking attends their various performances. There is, in short, no evidence from the side of bodily expression to indicate the presence in man of a special nervous faculty called reflection.

Consider next the contention that the cue to thought is a puzzling situation, involving a problem. No problem, no thought; no thought, no problem. This may mean either that a man finding himself in a difficult situation uses all his energy and resource to escape from it, or, that he never concerns himself with abstract symbols except under the spur of necessity. The former meaning contains some truth, but the latter is what Dewey would call a 'dark saying.' If by 'thought' be meant that period of high activity of all the faculties which is only occasional, it is doubtless true enough that a problem is frequently needed to awaken it. Man is content to let life glide along with a minimum of effort; he cannot, if he would, long maintain the state of high activity here called 'thinking.' As a consequence of not thinking when he should, man frequently finds himself involved in situations requiring the exercise of all the energy and resource he possesses. But the really efficient 'thinker' is the man who keeps his eyes open, who sees ahead. He is not efficient merely because of the excellence of his established modes of response, but, more particularly, because he is alive and alert. His thinking is effective in preventing difficult situations, as well as in getting out of them.

Defining 'thought,' however, as the direction of activity upon symbols and conceptions, there seems to be little warrant for asserting that it functions only on the occasion of a concrete, specific problem. One would say, on the contrary, that this would be an unfavorable occasion for the study of fundamental principles, whether scientific or practical. Summing up the external evidence, then, one would say that it accords as well with the hypothesis that the life processes constitute a single activity directed upon various objects, as with the hypothesis that thought is a very special organic activity, having a special biological function. At least, the evidence for the existence of such a special faculty is dubious and uncertain.

What does the internal evidence prove? The analysis of thought contained in James's chapter on "Reasoning" in the Principles of Psychology has been the guide for Dewey and other pragmatists in this connection.[285] James undertakes to show that reasoning is marked off from other processes by the employment of analysis, abstraction, and the use of mediating terms. It must be urged here, not only against James, but against a considerable modern tradition, that this account of thinking is misleading and inaccurate. The question to be faced, of course, is whether the processes of thought differ radically from the non-reflective processes in kind, or whether they are simply the intensification of processes which attend all conscious life. It should be noted that no concession is made to the notion that thinking is a special kind of process; only its subject-matter is special, or else thought is simply a period of wide-awakeness and alertness. In the latter sense, thought involves an intensification of the powers of observation, an awakening of memory, a general stimulation of all the faculties. It calls for the fullest possible apprehension, demands the most complete insight into the nature of the situation that the capacities can provide. The contrast between the adequate view of reality achieved in this manner and the common and inadequate apprehension of ordinary life is very great, and might easily lead to the supposition that thinking (so understood) contains elements which are added through the activities of a special nerve process.

But is it only in such moments that we deliberately resolve a situation into its elements, and abstract an 'essence' to serve as a middle term in inference? It is certain that at such moments these processes are more distinct than at other times; but the whole situation, for that matter, stands out more clearly and distinctly. Perception is keener, memory more definite, feeling more intense. In less degree, however, all attention involves analysis and abstraction. Experience has always a focus and a margin; there is a constant selecting and analyzing out of important elements, which in turn lead to further conclusions and acts, through associations by contiguity and similarity. This process appears in an intensified form in the high moments of life. In short, thought and passive perception are differentiated, not by the elements which compose them, but by the degree of energy that goes into perception, memory, feeling, and discrimination. There is nothing in the evidence to show that thinking is a special kind of activity, which operates now and then. On the contrary, there is every reason to hold to the position that the life processes are one and inseparable, operating continually in conjunction.

What shall be said, then, with reference to the assertion that thought operates in the interests of the non-cognitive life processes? That it comes 'after something and for the sake of something,' namely, 'direct' experience? Since the separation of the activities into various 'functions' cannot be allowed, by occasional thought must then be meant those moments of energetic aliveness described above. Translating, Dewey's theory would read something like this: Man employs his faculties to the fullest extent only when he is compelled to do so. He gets along habitually, that is, with a minimum of effort, as long as he can, but rouses himself and makes an earnest effort to comprehend the world only when his environment presents him with difficulties which demand solution. The test of man's thinking consists in its efficiency in getting him out of trouble, and enabling him to return to his habitual modes of sub-conscious conduct with a minimum of annoyance. In short, thinking is an instrument which subserves man's natural laziness, and its test is the efficiency with which it promotes an easy, or, at any rate, a satisfactory mode of existence.

No doubt some men, perhaps many men, do follow such a programme; but it would not be kind to Nature to assert that she planned it so.

This separation of the activities of life into several distinct processes having each a special function looks like a survival of the old faculty psychology, against which modern thought has protested as much as against anything whatever. The conception of the organic processes as separate in action has all the faults of a merely mechanical representation of consciousness. Doubtless some advantage is to be obtained, for purposes of investigation, by treating thought, appreciation, and affection separately; but it is a serious error to take this provisional distinction as real. It is a curious fact that Dewey, with all his opposition to such modes of procedure, himself falls into this abstract way of treating the 'functions' of experience, seeing not the beam that is in his own eye.

It is this very form of treatment, strangely enough, which enables Dewey to call biology to the support of his interpretation of the function of knowledge. According to the Darwinian theory, survival of the species is dependent upon the development of special structures and capacities which enable the organism to adjust itself to its environment. Dewey finds, following a familiar argument, that the lower animals are adapted to their environment by special habits of reaction which are relatively fixed and inelastic. Man, on the contrary, has an exceedingly plastic nervous system, which enables him to meet changing conditions. Man is not only highly adapted, but highly adaptable. This trait of plasticity, or adaptability, Dewey believes, is a product of natural selection, and, of course, in the final analysis, this high degree of plasticity is the thought function.

It is scarcely necessary to say that this treatment of thought is highly speculative. Dewey offers little concrete evidence to support his position; indeed, it would require the labor of a Darwin to supply the needed evidence. Instead of grounding his theories upon the results of science, Dewey adapts the ever elastic 'evolutionary method' (not really that of biological evolution, however indeterminate) to his own scheme of things. It would be hard to discover in philosophical literature a method more purely theoretical and even dialectical than that whereby Dewey gives his logical theory the support of evolutionary theory.

The ultimately mechanical tendencies of his argument are conspicuous, in spite of all disclaimers. The effect of his analysis is to set plasticity or adaptability off by itself, as a special trait or feature of the nervous system. The lower forms of life are governed, we are told, by fixed reflexes, and the trait of adaptability appears at some higher stage in the process as a superadded capacity of the nervous system, correlated, no doubt, with special nervous structures. Evolutionism would not serve Dewey so well, had he not previously made this separation between the organic functions and their correlated structures; but, given this abstract treatment of the life processes, he is able to make the doctrine of selection contribute to its support. In opposition to Dewey's argument, it would be reasonable to contend that plasticity is inherent in all nervous substance. The higher organisms are more adaptable, because there is more to be modified in them,—more nerves and synapses, more pliability. There is no sound empirical reason for accepting Dewey's biological conclusions.

Taking Dewey's theory at its face value,—and it would be presumptuous to search for hidden meanings,—its net result is to place the function of knowing in an embarrassing situation with respect to its capacity for giving a correct report of reality. Dewey expressly denies, indeed, that the purpose of knowing is to give an account of the nature of things. Reality, he asserts, is whatever it is 'experienced as being,' and it is normally experienced in other ways than by being known. The nature of reality is not hidden behind a veil, to be searched out; but is here and now, as it comes and goes in the form of passing experience. Knowing is designed to transform experience, not to bring it within the survey of consciousness.

How does it stand, then, with Dewey's own account of the knowledge process? He has reflected upon experience, and claims to have given a correct account of its nature. Dewey's conception of the processes of experience is genuinely conceptual, a thought product, designed to furnish a solid basis for belief and calculation. But reflection, by his own account, is shut in to its own moment, cannot apprehend the true nature of 'non-cognitional' experiences, and cannot, therefore, deal adequately with any problems except such as are furnished it by other 'functions.' No wonder that 'anti-intellectualism' should result from such a conception of knowledge.

Philosophers have always held that the purpose of reflection (whatever reflection may be, psychologically) is the attainment of a reliable insight into the nature of the world. Practical considerations compel this view. Ordinary, casual observation is superficial and unsystematic; it never penetrates beneath the surface. Doubtless reality is, in some degree, what it is in unreflective moments; but it is frequently something more, as man learns to his sorrow. Reflection displaces the casual, haphazard attitude, in the attempt to get at the real nature of the world.

The results of reflection, moreover, are cumulative. It tends to build up, by gradual accretions, a conceptual view of reality which may serve as a relatively stable basis for conduct and calculation. Thought does, indeed, possess a transforming function. The reasoned knowledge of things is gradually extended beyond the occasional moments of inquiring thought, supplanting the casual view with a more penetrating insight; reality becomes more and better known, and less merely experienced.

Dewey reverses this view in a curious manner. It is 'experience' that is built up by the action of thought, not knowledge itself. This play on terms might be innocuous, if it were not accompanied by his separation of the knowing function from others. Dewey makes 'knowing' the servant of 'direct experience' by giving it the function of reconstructing the habits of the organism, in order that unreflective experience may be maintained with a minimum of effort. The non-reflective experience becomes the valuable experience, and knowledge is made to minister unto it. This is truly a 'transvaluation of values.'

Dewey asks: "What is it that makes us live alternately in a concrete world of experience in which thought as such finds not satisfaction, and in a world of ordered thought which is yet only abstract and ideal?"[286] This sharp separation of thought from action is vigorously maintained. Following are some of the terms by means of which the difference between direct and reflective experience is expressed: 'direct practice,' 'derived theory;' 'primary construction,' 'secondary criticism;' 'living appreciation,' 'abstract description;' 'active endeavor,' 'pale reflection.'[287] This casual, easy distinction escapes criticism because it seems harmless and unimportant. The distinction, however, is not real. It does not correspond to the simple facts of life. Thinking, far from being 'pale reflection,' is often a strenuous and energetic 'activity.' Reflection, not 'direct experience,' is often, at least, at the high moment of life. Experience becomes unmeaning on any other basis. 'Living appreciation' and 'primary construction' involve thought in a high degree; 'pale reflection' is lazy contemplation, lacking the spark of life that characterizes true thought.

There is no escape from Dewey's needlessly alarming conclusions, except by maintaining that thought accompanies all conscious life, in greater or less degree, and that the moment of real, earnest thinking is at the high tide of life, when all the powers are awake and operating. Thought must be made integral with all other activities, a feature of the total life organization, rather than an isolated phenomenon. Man is a thinking organism, not an organism with a thinker.

It is not to be supposed for a moment that by 'thought' is here meant the activity of a merely subjective knower. Dewey does, indeed, deal effectively with the subjective ego, and with representative perceptionism. But by 'thought' is here meant reflection, judgment, inference; and in this sense thought is said to be present in all experience. There can be no question of the relation of thought, so understood, to reality; for the reason that it has been so integrated with experience as to be inseparable from it. Setting aside knowing as the awareness of a conscious subject, there remains an issue with Dewey concerning the actual place of thought, as an empirical process, in experience, and the issue must be settled on definite and really empirical grounds. So much, then, for 'functionalism' and its psychology.

Something should be said, before closing this discussion, concerning philosophical methods in general, since Dewey's psychological approach to the problems of philosophy must be held responsible for his anti-intellectualistic results, with their sceptical implications. In the beginning of his career, as has been seen, Dewey adopted the 'psychological method,' and he has adhered to it consistently ever since. This initial attitude, although he was not aware of it for many years, cut him off from the community of understanding that exists among modern idealists concerning the proper aims and purposes of philosophical inquiry. Although at first a professed follower of Green and Caird, Dewey's method was not reconcilable with idealistic procedure, and in a very real sense he never was an idealist. The virulence of his later attacks on 'intellectualism' may be explained in terms of his reaction against a philosophical method which interfered with the development of his own 'naturalistic' tendencies.

The method of idealism, or speculative philosophy, is logical; but it may perfectly well be empirical at the same time. To the anti-intellectualist empirical logic is an anomaly, a red blue-bird, so to speak. The philosophical logician is represented as one who evolves reality out of his own consciousness; who labors with the concepts which have their abode in the mental sphere, and, by means of the principle of contradiction, forces them into harmony until they provide a perfectly consistent representation of the external world which, because of its perfect rationality, must somehow correspond with the cosmic reality. In spite of the fact that no man possesses, at least in a sane condition, the mental equipment requisite for such a performance, certain critics have not hesitated to impute this kind of logical procedure to the idealists. To quote from Dewey himself: "For modern philosophy is, as every college senior recites, epistemology; and epistemology, as perhaps our books and lectures sometimes forget to tell the senior, has absorbed Stoic dogma. Passionless imperturbability, absolute detachment, complete subjection to a ready-made and finished reality ... is its professed ideal.... Philosophy has dreamed the dream of a knowledge which is other than the propitious outgrowth of beliefs that shall develop aforetime their ulterior implications in order to recast them ..., the dream of a knowledge that has to do with objects having no nature save to be known."[288]

This charge against modern idealism has little foundation. Speculative philosophy repudiated, long ago, the 'epistemological standpoint' as defined by Dewey. Idealists have not fostered the conception of a knowing subject shut in to its own states, seeking information about an impersonal reality over against itself. Note, for example, this comment of Pringle-Pattison on Kant, made over thirty-five years ago: "The distinction between mind and the world, which is valid only from a certain point of view, he took as an absolute separation. He took it, to use a current phrase, abstractly—that is to say, as a mere fact, a fact standing by itself and true in any reference. And of course when two things are completely separate, they can only be brought together by a bond which is mechanical, external, and accidental to the real nature of both."[289] Dewey himself never condemned 'epistemology' more effectively. But it is useless to cite instances, for any serious student familiar with the literature of modern philosophy ought to know that 'idealism' has never really been 'epistemological' in the sense meant by Dewey and his disciples. Subjectivism is not idealism,—the stolid dogmatism of neo-realism to the contrary notwithstanding.

Idealism holds, speaking more positively, that philosophers must submit the conceptions and methods which they employ to a preliminary immanent criticism, in order to determine the limits within which they may be validly applied. Every genuine category or method is valid within a certain sphere of relevance, and the business of criticism is to determine by empirical investigation or by 'ideal experiment' (which means much the same thing) what concrete significance the conception is capable of bearing. Dewey, from the standpoint of idealism, is guilty of a somewhat uncritical use of the categories of 'description' and 'evolution.' Are the categories of biology fitted to explain mind and spirit? Instead of instituting an inquiry designed to answer that question, Dewey accepts 'evolutionism' as final, and attempts to force all phenomena into conformity with his resulting logical scheme. He misses the valuable checks upon thought which are furnished by the 'critical method,' and is none too sensitive to the technical results of the special sciences.

The logical approach to philosophy strictly involves certain implications which have been overlooked by many of its critics. It may well be admitted that our real categories are not fixed and final, but are perpetually in process of reconstruction. The process of criticism inevitably makes manifest the human and empirical character of the particular forms of reflective thought. It recognizes the fact of development, both in knowledge and in reality, and by this very recognition the value of knowledge is enhanced. It is forced, by the very nature of its method, to recognize the concrete and practical bearings of thought. Indeed, there is a sense in which idealism would declare that there is no thought—when thought, that is, is taken to mean an isolated fact out of relation to the world. It is not possible to make this retort upon the critics of idealism without recognizing that there has been a vast misjudgment, amounting almost to misrepresentation, of the intellectual ideals of modern speculative philosophy.

To conclude, it is neither by abstract logical processes, nor yet by the dogmatic employment of scientific categories, that philosophy makes progress, but by an empirical process which unites criticism and experiment. In speaking of the development of modern idealism, Bosanquet says: "All difficulties about the general possibility—the possibility in principle—of apprehending reality in knowledge and preception were flung aside as antiquated lumber. What was undertaken was the direct adventure of knowing; of shaping a view of the universe which should include and express reality in its completeness. The test and criterion were not any speculative assumption of any kind whatever. They were the direct work of the function of knowledge in exhibiting what could and what could not maintain itself when all the facts were confronted and set in the order they themselves demanded. The method of inquiry was ideal experiment."[290]

When all has been said, this method remains the natural and normal one. Dewey's 'psychological method,' by contrast, seems strained and far-fetched, an artificial and externally motived attempt to guide the intellect, which only by depending upon its own resources and its own increasing insight can hope to attain the distant and difficult, but never really foreign goal.