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 toward any possible use to which increased knowledge might lead. The cult of increasing knowledge, of continually reconstructing the world, took the place both of the ancient conception of adequately organizing the world as presented in thought, and of the medieval conception of a systematic formulation on the basis of the statement in church dogma of social values. This modern conception proceeds from the standpoint not of formulating values, but giving society at the moment the largest possible number of alternatives of conduct, i.e., undertaking to fix from moment to moment the widest possible field of conduct. The purposes of conduct are to be determined in the presence of a field of alternative possibilities of action. The ends of conduct are not to be determined in advance, but in view of the interests that fuller knowledge of conditions awaken. So there appears a conception of