on of the senses, and it is
conditioned by the accuracy of the sense-perceptions with which it
deals. There is no appeal from experience to reason, for reason is
powerless to act save on the facts of human experience. Speculative
philosophy can teach us nothing. The senses and the reason are intensely
practical and all, our faculties are primarily adapted to immediate
purposes. Instruments such as these cannot serve to probe the nature of
the infinite. But no other instruments lie within reach of man. If we
cannot "reach the heart of reality" by reason, what indeed can we reach?
What right have we to know or to believe? And if we can know or believe
nothing, what should we try to do? And how indeed can we do anything?
Every man's fate is determined by his heredity and his environment. In
the Arab proverb he is born with his fate bound to his neck. In the
course of life we must do that which has been already cut out for us.
Our parts were laid for us long before we appeared to take them. He is
indeed a strong man who can vary the cast or give a different cue to
those who follow. Nature is no respecter of persons, and to suppose that
any man is in any degree "the arbiter of his own destiny" is pure
illusion. We are thrust forth into life, against our will. Against our
will we are forced to leave it. We find ourselves, as has been said, "on
a steep incline, where we can veer but little to the left or right";
whichever way we move we fall finally to the very bottom. The fires we
kindle die away in coals; castles we build vanish before our eyes. The
river sinks in the sands of the desert. The character we form by our
efforts disintegrates in spite of our effort. If life be spared we find
ourselves once again helpless children. Whichever way we turn we may
describe the course of life in metaphors of discouragement.

To the pessimistic philosopher the progress of the race is also mere
illusion. There is no progress, only adaptation. Every creature must fit
itself to its environment or pass away. The beast fits the forest for
the same reason that the river fits its bed. Life is only possible under
the rare conditions in which life is not destroyed.

In such fashion we may ring the changes of the despair of philosophy. If
we are to take up the threads of life by the farther end only, we shall
never begin to live, for only those which lie next us can ever be in our
hand. To grasp at ultimate truth is to be forever empty-handed. T