from it, obviously determines nothing about the causes that
may have brought reason to its present pass or the phases that may have
preceded its appearance. Certain notions about physics might no doubt
suggest themselves to the moralist, who never can be the whole man; he
might suspect, for instance, that the transitive intent of intellect and
will pointed to their vital basis. Transcendence in operation might seem
appropriate only to a being with a history and with an organism subject
to external influences, whose mind should thus come to represent not
merely its momentary state but also its constitutive past and its
eventual fortunes. Such suggestions, however, would be extraneous to
dialectical self-knowledge. They would be tentative only, and human
nature would be freely admitted to be as variable, as relative, and as
transitory as the natural history of the universe might make it.

[Sidenote: Ideals functional.]

The error, however, would be profound and the contradiction hopeless if
we should deny the ideal authority of human nature because we had
discovered its origin and conditions. Nature and evolution, let us say,
have brought life to the present form; but this life lives, these organs
have determinate functions, and human nature, here and now, in relation
to the ideal energies it unfolds, is a fundamental essence, a collection
of activities with determinate limits, relations, and ideals. The
integration and determinateness of these faculties is the condition for
any synthetic operation of reason. As the structure of the steam-engine
has varied greatly since its first invention, and its attributions have
increased, so the structure of human nature has undoubtedly varied since
man first appeared upon the earth; but as in each steam-engine at each
moment there must be a limit of mobility, a unity of function and a
clear determination of parts and tensions, so in human nature, as found
at any time in any man, there is a definite scope by virtue of which
alone he can have a reliable memory, a recognisable character, a faculty
of connected thought and speech, a social utility, and a moral ideal. On
man's given structure, on his activity hovering about fixed objects,
depends the possibility of conceiving or testing any truth or making
any progress in happiness.

[Sidenote: They are transferable to similar beings.]

Thinkers of different experience and organisation have _pro tanto_
different logics and different m