“This raises a somewhat important question: Is the world ‘rational,’ i. e., such as to conform to our intellectual habits? Or is it ‘irrational,’ i. e., not such as we should have made it if we had been in the position of the Creator? I do not propose to suggest an answer to this question.” No, we do not know whether the world is such as we would have made it if we had been in the position of the Creator. But it is possible for us to gain some intelligent idea of what we can and should make of our world so far as lies within our human power and understanding. Throughout all historic times men have striven to attain that insight, discrimination and foreknowledge which would enable them to become “legislators of values”--to give their existence quality and their experiences an order of preference that would lend beauty and harmony and some permanence to the half-chaotic stream of events and objects which swept through their lives. This is the aim of the pursuit of knowledge. It is to give to existence an “order of rank.” What if the order be a human one? General coöperation in its development is what we mean by culture. And education is not mere perpetuation of the order of the past. The hierarchy of values must be constantly recreated if it is to survive. Knowledge of the past is the inspiration to such creative effort and knowledge of nature is a guide to it. A generation ago William James, whose philosophy of science was thoroughly Humanistic, suggested that the fascination of the pursuit of knowledge was that we might thus be in at the places where truth is actually in the making, and that we should never know what sort of world this would be “till the last man’s vote is in and counted.” What we are to make of this unfinished world depends largely upon the power and wisdom and appreciation of value which we may attain through our education. CHAPTER XIV THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE Finally, with what appraisement may the seeker for knowledge view education itself? In the course of our study we have cast aside numerous idols and comforting fictions. We have seen that in the process of a liberal education old dilemmas are outgrown; that the habit is formed of questioning all things; that the educated mind becomes capable of amused self-criticism, attains urbanity of spirit and tolerant scepticism of the crowd and its partisan controversies, and with civilized resignation learns that it may not possess finality in matters of truth and right, but that a man must order his life according to the wisest discrimination of value of which he is capable.