 Hook followed Dewey in stressing the connection between a naturalistic metaphysics and the identification of human knowledge as an instrument in transforming the real nature of Nature. Significantly, this feature of naturalistic metaphysics heightened the pragmatic emphasis upon the capacity of human agency to function as an activist transformer of the natural environment. To a significant degree, what was natural, whether in the sphere of the universe or the sphere of human affairs, could be considered in the idiom of pragmatism not so much as a “given,” but as a possibility for a “taken.” The theme of human transformation of the natural environment carried Hook from the initial interest in the metaphysics of pragmatism to the possibilities of pragmatism as a philosophy which could apply scientific method for social change.