habits and
principles that have secured our present knowledge are still active
within us, and promise further discoveries. It is more desirable to
clarify our knowledge within these bounds than to extend it beyond them.
For while the reward of action is contemplation or, in more modern
phrase, experience and consciousness, there is nothing stable or
interesting to contemplate except objects relevant to action--the
natural world and the mind's ideals.

Both the conditions and the standards of action lie well within the
territory which science, after a fashion, already dominates. But there
remain unexplored jungles and monster-breeding lairs within our nominal
jurisdiction which it is the immediate task of science to clear. The
darkest spots are in man himself, in his fitful, irrational disposition.
Could a better system prevail in our lives a better order would
establish itself in our thinking. It has not been for want of keen
senses, or personal genius, or a constant order in the outer world, that
mankind have fallen back repeatedly into barbarism and superstition. It
has been for want of good character, good example, and good government.
There is a pathetic capacity in men to live nobly, if only they would
give one another the chance. The ideal of political perfection, vague
and remote as it yet seems, is certainly approachable, for it is as
definite and constant as human nature. The knowledge of all relevant
truth would be involved in that ideal, and no intellectual
dissatisfaction would be felt with a system of ideas that should express
and illumine a perfect life.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF REASON***

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