ABSTRACT
Upon the biological level, organisms have to respond to conditions about them in ways that modify those conditions and the relations of organisms to them so as to restore the reciprocal adaptation that is required for the maintenance of life-functions. The use of the term common sense is somewhat arbitrary from a linguistic point of view. There is a genuine difference between the two meanings of common sense. But from the standpoint of a given group there is a definite deposit of agreement. Even scientific theories and interpretations continue to be affected by conceptions that have ceased to be determinative in the actual practice of inquiry. When scientific subject-matter is seen to bear genetic and functional relation to the subject-matter of common sense, these problems disappear. Scientific subject-matter is intermediate, not final and complete in itself. It is not urged that attainment of a unified logic, a theory of inquiry, will resolve the split in our beliefs and procedures.
