ality itself is said to be
unattainable, because knowledge, in order to come within the order of
nature, must be regarded as reducible to sensation; and because
sensation itself, when regarded as a part of nature, is only a
physiological process, a special phenomenon, in no way qualified to be
knowledge that is true of reality.

[Sidenote: Naturalistic Epistemology not Systematic.]

Sect. 119. Perhaps, after all, it would be as fair to the spirit of
naturalism to relieve it of responsibility for an epistemology. It has
never thoroughly reckoned with this problem. It has deliberately
selected from among the elements of experience, and been so highly
constructive in its method as to forfeit its claim to pure empiricism;
and, on the other hand, has, in this same selection of categories and in
its insistence upon the test of experiment, fallen short of a
thorough-going rationalism. While, on the one hand, it defines and
constructs, it does so, on the other hand, within the field of
perception and with constant reference to the test of perception. The
explanation and justification of this procedure is to be found in the
aim of natural science rather than in that of philosophy. It is this
special interest, rather than the general problem of being, that
determines the order of its categories. Naturalism as an account of
reality is acceptable only so far as its success in satisfying specific
demands obtains for it a certain logical immunity. These demands are
unquestionably valid and fundamental, but they are not coextensive with
the demand for truth. They coincide rather with the immediate practical
need of a formulation of the spacial and temporal changes that confront
the will. Hence naturalism is acceptable to common-sense as an account
of what the every-day attitude to the environment treats as its object.
Naturalism is common-sense about the "outer world," revised and brought
up to date with the aid of the results of science. Its deepest spring is
the organic instinct for the reality of the tangible, the vital
recognition of the significance of that which is on the plane of
interaction with the body.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: General Ethical Stand-point.]

Sect. 120. Oddly enough, although common-sense is ready to intrust to
naturalism the description of the situation of life, it prefers to deal
otherwise with its ideals. Indeed, common-sense is not without a certain
suspicion that natura