ese observations and hypotheses together with erroneous
conceptions and mistaken observations _within_ the real world in such a
fashion that their reference to the experience of the individual and to
the world to which he belongs will be comprehensible. As I have
indicated, the scientific theory of the physical and conscious
individual in the world implied in this problem has still to be
adequately developed. But there is implied in the conception of such a
theory such a location of the process of thought in the process of
reality as will give it an import both in the meaning of things and in
the individual's thinking. We have the beginning of such a doctrine in
the conception of a functional value of consciousness in the conduct of
living forms, and the development of reflective thought out of such a
consciousness which puts it within the act and gives it the function of
preparation where adjustment is necessary. Such a process creates the
situation with reference to which the form acts. In all adjustment or
adaptation the result is that the form which is adjusted finds that by
its adjustment it has created an environment. The ancients by their
formulation of the Ptolemaic theory committed themselves to the world in
which the fixed values of the heavenly over against the earthly
obtained. Such a world was the interpretation of the experience involved
in their physical and social attitudes. They could not accept the
hypothesis of Aristarchus because it conflicted with the world which
they had created, with the values which were determining values for
them. The same was true of the hypothesis of Democritus. They could not,
as they conceived the physical world, accept its purely quantitative
character. The conception of a disinterested truth which we have
cherished since the Middle Ages is itself a value that has a social
basis as really as had the dogma of the church. The earliest statement
of it was perhaps that of Francis Bacon. Freeing investigation from the
church dogma and its attendant logic meant to him the freedom to find in
nature what men needed and could use for the amelioration of their
social and physical condition. The full implication of the doctrine has
been recognized as that of freedom, freedom to effect not only values
already recognized, but freedom to attain as well such complete
acquaintance with nature that new and unrecognized uses would be at our
disposal; that is, that progress should be one towar