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respect, modern common-sense holds that the scientist's answer is the only ultimately true one. In the last resort enlightened common-sense sticks by the opaque truth and refuses to go behind the returns given by the tangible facts.
Quasi lignum vitae in paradiso Dei, et quasi lucerna fulgoris in domo Domini, such is the place of science in modern civiliza- tion. This latter-day faith in matter-of-fact knowledge may be well grounded or it may not. It has come about that men assign it this high place, perhaps idolatrously, perhaps to the detriment of the best and most intimate interests of the race. There is room for much more than a vague doubt that this cult of science is not altogether a wholesome growth that the unmitigated quest of knowledge, of this matter-of-fact kind, makes for race- deterioration and discomfort on the whole, both in its immediate effects upon the spiritual life of mankind, and in the material consequences that follow from a great advance in matter-of-fact knowledge.
But we are not here concerned with the merits of the case. The question here is : How has this cult of science arisen ? What are its cultural antecedents? How far is it in consonance with hereditary human nature? and, What is the nature of its hold on the convictions of civilized men ?
In dealing with pedagogical problems and the theory of edu- cation, current psychology is nearly at one in saying that all learning is of a "pragmatic" character; that knowledge is in- choate action inchoately directed to an end ; that all knowledge is "functional ;" that it is of the nature of use. This, of course, is only a corollary under the main postulate of the latter-day psy- chologists, whose catchword is that The Idea is essentially active. There is no need of quarreling with this "pragmatic" school of psychologists. Their aphorism may not contain the whole truth, perhaps, but at least it goes nearer to the heart of the epistemo- logical problem than any earlier formulation. It may confidently be said to do so because, for one thing, its argument meets the requirements of modern science. It is such a concept as matter- of-fact science can make effective use of; it is drawn in terms
