The purpose of reflection, then, is to enable man to adapt himself to his environment, understanding by the environment the whole of the reality which surrounds him. The test of the mind and its newly projected modes of response [ideas] lies in its ability to meet the demands of the situation. The capacities and limits of mind are determined by the purpose for which it was evolved; it can enable a man to deal more effectively with his environment; it can do nothing else. It cannot speculate on the nature of reality as such, nor voyage on long journeys in search of truth! Its business is practical, here and now. Its problems are always set for it by circumstances, and these circumstances are concrete and specific. There is no such thing as adaptation at large or in general.
The business of mind is to have, and to continually reconstruct, useful habits. So Dewey assures the American Psychological Association in 1899, in an address on "Psychology and Social Practice."[144] We must recognize, he says, "that the existing order is determined neither by fate nor by chance, but is based on law and order, on a system of existing stimuli and modes of reaction, through knowledge of which we can modify the practical outcome."[145] Psychology uninterpreted, he says, will never provide ready-made materials and prescriptions for the ethical life. "But science, both physical and psychological, makes known the conditions upon which certain results depend, and therefore puts at the disposal of life a certain method of controlling them."[146] These statements show the extent to which Dewey's view of knowledge has come to be controlled by biological conceptions.
The evolutionary method is investigated in considerable detail in the next article to be considered, which was published in two parts in the Philosophical Review, 1902, under the title, "The Evolutionary Method as Applied to Morality."[147]
The fact that some philosophers deny the importance of the evolutionary method for ethics, holding that morality is purely a matter of value, and that the evolutionary method tends only to obscure differences of value, makes it necessary to inquire into the import and nature of this method. "Anyway," Dewey says, "before we either abuse or recommend genetic method we ought to have some answers to these questions: Just what is it? Just what is to come of it and how?"[148]
The experimental method in science has at least some of the traits of a genetic method. The nature of water, for instance, cannot be determined by simply observing it. But experiment brings to light the exact conditions under which it came into being and therefore explains it. "Through generating water we single out the precise and sole conditions which have to be fulfilled that water may present itself as an experienced fact. If this case be typical, then the experimental method is entitled to rank as genetic method; it is concerned with the manner or process by which anything comes into experienced existence."[149]
Some would deny this, on the ground that a genuinely historical event occupies a particular place in a historical series, from which it is inseparable, while in experimental science the sets or pairs of terms are not limited to any particular place in a historical series, but occur and recur. "Water is made over and over again, and, so to speak, at any date in the cosmic series. This deprives any account of it of genuinely historic quality."[150] Again, it might be said in opposition to treating the experimental method as a genetic method, that it is interested in individual cases not as such, but as samples or instances. The particular case is only an illustration of the general relation which is being sought.
It will turn out in the course of the discussion, Dewey says, that, although science deals with origins, it is not, in strictness, a historical discipline. The distinction between the historical and other sciences is based on an abstraction, which has been introduced for the sake of more adequate control. It is only by abstraction that we get the pairs of facts that may show up at any time, and by abstraction we attribute to them a generalized character. The facts, in themselves, are historic.
There is no such thing as water in general, but water is just this water, at this time, in this place, and it never shows itself twice, never recurs. The scientist must deal, therefore, with particular historic cases of water, and with their specific origins. "Experiment has to do with the conditions of production of a specific amount of water, at a specific time and place, under specific circumstances: in a word, it must deal with just this water. The conditions which define its origin must be stated with equal definiteness and circumstantiality."[151] The instance has as definite a place in an historical series as has Julius Caesar. But the difference in treatment of the water and Caesar is due to the difference in interest. "Julius Caesar served a purpose which no other individual, at any other time, could have served. There is a peculiar flavor of human meaning and accomplishment about him which has no substitute or equivalent. Not so with water. While each portion is absolutely unique in its occurrence, yet one lot will serve our intellectual or practical needs just as well as any other."[152] For this reason the specific case of water is not dealt with on its own account, but only as giving insight into the processes of its generation in general. In this way the difference arises between the generalized statements of physical science and the individualized form demanded in historical science. The abstract character of the physical result is recognized by the hypothetical form of judgment in modern logic; if certain conditions, then certain consequences. But the counterpart of this must not be forgotten, that every categorical proposition applies to an individual. Experimental propositions, therefore, have an historical value. "They take their rise in, and they find their application to, a world of unique and changing things: an evolutionary universe."[153] The recognition of the historical character of experimental science does not in any way derogate from its value, but, properly understood, gives a deeper insight into its significance. It should be observed that here also Dewey treats thought, hypothesis, as coming 'after something, and for the sake of something.'
This attempt to justify the historical method by showing that it is implied in physical experiment is of dubious value. Its net result would seem to be the conclusion that every fact may be dealt with either as a historical fact or as a datum for physical science. Even here, however, Dewey slurs over certain difficulties which demand close scrutiny. The treatment of individuality is most unsatisfactory. While each portion or instance of water is itself, and has its own unquestionable uniqueness, no case is a mere particular, but each is a true individual, which means that it is, as it occurs, an instance of a general phenomenon. While the scientist must deal with specific cases of water, he has no regard for their particularity, but chooses them as instances, and is from first to last occupied with their typical characteristics. The historian, also, selects relevant and representative instances, in so far as his history is interpretative and not mere narrative.