The Ultimate Substance

What distinguishes man from beasts is precisely that he adjusts his behavior deliberatiely. He renounces the satisfaction of a burning impulse in order to satisfy other desires. The progress of scientific research may succeed in demonstrating that something previously con dered as an ultimate given can be reduced to components. But there will always be some irreducible and unanalyzable phenomena, some ultimate given. There is no point in quarrelling about these problems. Such metaphysical disputes are interminable. Our knowledge does not provide the means to solve them with an answer which every reasonable man must consider satisfactory.