e
cosmos impinges upon each one of us, each one desires to feel that his
reaction at that point is congruous with the demands of the vast
whole,--that he balances the latter, so to speak, and is able to do
what it expects of him. But as his abilities to do lie wholly in the
line of his natural propensities; as he enjoys reacting with such
emotions as fortitude, hope, rapture, admiration, earnestness, and the
like; and as he very unwillingly reacts with fear, disgust, despair, or
doubt,--a philosophy which should only legitimate emotions of the
latter sort would be sure to leave the mind a prey to discontent and
craving.

It is far too little recognized how entirely the intellect is built up
of practical interests. The theory of evolution is beginning to do
very good service by its reduction of all mentality to the type of
reflex action. Cognition, in this view, is but a fleeting moment, a
cross-section at a certain point, of what in its totality is a motor
phenomenon. In the lower forms of life no one will pretend that
cognition is anything more than a guide to appropriate action. The
germinal question concerning things brought for the first time before
consciousness is not the theoretic 'What is that?' but the practical
'Who goes there?' or rather, as Horwicz has admirably put it, 'What is
to be done?'--'Was fang' ich an?' In all our discussions about the
intelligence of lower animals, the only test we use is that of their
_acting_ as if for a purpose. {85} Cognition, in short, is incomplete
until discharged in act; and although it is true that the later mental
development, which attains its maximum through the hypertrophied
cerebrum of man, gives birth to a vast amount of theoretic activity
over and above that which is immediately ministerial to practice, yet
the earlier claim is only postponed, not effaced, and the active nature
asserts its rights to the end.

When the cosmos in its totality is the object offered to consciousness,
the relation is in no whit altered. React on it we must in some
congenial way. It was a deep instinct in Schopenhauer which led him to
reinforce his pessimistic argumentation by a running volley of
invective against the practical man and his requirements. No hope for
pessimism unless he is slain!

Helmholtz's immortal works on the eye and ear are to a great extent
little more than a commentary on the law that practical utility wholly
determines which parts of our sensations we