ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 ALBERT SCHINZ 
 
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ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
ANTI-PRAGMATISM '^ 
 
 ■S 
 
 AN EXAMINATION INTO THE RESPECTIVE | ^ 
 
 RIGHTS OF INTELLECTUAL ARIS- 
 TOCRACY AND SOCIAL 
 DEMOCRACY 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT SCHINZ, Ph.D. 
 
 ASSOCIATE-PROFESSOR OF FRENCH LITERATURE IN BRYN MAWR 
 
 COLLEGE; FORMERLY " PROFESSEUR-AGREG^ DE PHI- 
 
 LOSOPHIE" AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEUCHAtEL 
 
 Sapere aude. — Horace. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 

 Copyright, 1909 
 
 JBg Small, /iBa^nar& & Company 
 
 (ikcoepobatbd) 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall 
 
 THE UNIVHRSITV PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
to 
 
 TO 
 M. THEODORE RIBOT 
 
 OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE 
 
 
 1r 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FAGB 
 
 Warning to the Readers of this Edition .... ix 
 Introduction xv 
 
 PART I 
 PRAGMATISM AND INTELLECTUALISM 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I The Principles of Pragmatism 21 
 
 II The Dewey Case 88 
 
 PART II 
 PRAGMATISM AND MODERNISM 
 
 I Social Phenomena Explaining the Appearance 
 
 of a Pragmatic Philosophy no 
 
 II Pragmatism of the Middle Ages and Modern 
 
 Scholasticism 165 
 
 PART III 
 
 PRAGMATISM AND TRUTH 
 
 I The Triumph of Pragmatism 207 
 
 II Salvation from Pragmatic Philosophy Possible 
 
 BUT NOT Probable 223 
 
 III Is William James a Pragmatist? 238 
 
 Conclusion 252 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 APPENDICES y^^^ 
 
 Appendix A Answers to Some Criticisms .... 253 
 
 Appendix B Literature and the Moral Code . . 269 
 
 Appendix C Common Sense and Philosophy . . . 280 
 
 Index 315 
 
WARNING TO THE READERS OF 
 THIS EDITION 
 
 The author of this book never feared that any 
 serious-minded reader would fail to appreciate the 
 sincerity and earnestness of his efforts. And indeed 
 he has not been deceived. He has rather occasion to 
 be grateful for the courteous tone of the criticisms 
 directed against some of his ideas which are, he is 
 well aware of it, opposed to those of most people 
 in our generation. To speak only of this country, 
 reviewers, in such papers and journals as The New 
 York Times, The Nation, and Evening Post, the 
 Boston Transcript, The Bookman, and Current Lit- 
 erature, have made it a point to give a very 
 fair account of what he said regarding America, 
 and of his views regarding democracy and aristoc- 
 racy of the intellect; they did so without suggest- 
 ing interpretations which would favor prejudiced 
 appreciations. 
 
 As a matter of fact only two exceptions could 
 be quoted, and they were articles emanating from 
 the pen of two American pragmatists. Still it was 
 enough to show that there were some statements 
 which might be misinterpreted if the book was trans- 
 lated and got a wider circulation in this country; 
 
X WARNING TO READERS OF THIS EDITION 
 
 therefore it will not be superfluous to take precau- 
 tion and warn once more — I say " once more " for 
 warning is found even in the original French edi- 
 tion — against the inclination, which some may feel, 
 to ascribe to the author ideas for which he is not 
 responsible. 
 
 With regard to statements concerning America, 
 it will be enough to recommend careful reading of 
 the whole Introduction and to underline especially 
 the following passage : 
 
 Note that I have no reproach to urge against 
 society for being pragmatic, that is to say, for watch- 
 ing over its own interests. On the contrary, I think 
 it is perfectly legitimate that it should do so. And, 
 besides, the word '' interests '^ may be taken in the 
 widest, or, if you please, most elevated sense. But 
 I do reproach a school of modern philosophers for 
 wishing to force impersonal philosophy, a moral 
 science, indifferent nature, to speak the same lan- 
 guage as our aspirations and our passions and even, 
 I grant, our generous aspirations, our noble pas- 
 sions. Our innate and psychic tendencies (in the 
 moral, social, and religious realms) are phenomena 
 for science to record and authenticate, not to justify 
 or legitimize. 
 
 Thus let it be clearly understood : against a prag- 
 matic conception of life I do not protest, but only 
 against pragmatic philosophers. 
 
WARNING TO READERS OF THIS EDITION xi 
 
 With regard to my opinions concerning democ- 
 racy, I only wish — until the time comes when I can 
 explain my ideas more fully than was possible within 
 the limits of this volume — to benefit by those words 
 of the sage Renan : One can love the people in hold- 
 ing an aristocratic philosophy, and not love it in 
 loudly advertising democratic principles. {Dia- 
 logues philosophiqties, p. i6.) 
 
 The remark has been made by several reviewers 
 that almost no technical terms were used in this 
 book and thus that it could be understood also by 
 those who are no specialists in philosophy. Mr. 
 Schiller (Mind, July, 1909) has probably voiced the 
 opinion of several critics in calling this way of pro- 
 ceeding " a curious theoretical inconsistency." His 
 idea was evidently that, with my opinion that scien- 
 tific truth ought to be kept out of reach of the gen- 
 eral public, I violated my own principles in writing 
 in non-technical style. I am not altogether surprised 
 that the objection should be made, but I answer as 
 follows : 
 
 In the first place the book is still philosophical 
 enough so as not to become popular with the masses. 
 
 Besides, in using abstract and technical terms the 
 way pragmatists do (and they do more than their 
 opponents rather than less, in spite of the fact that 
 they never tire of accusing others of doing it; ^ and 
 
 * As a good example of philosophical obscurity brought about by 
 technical terms, see the first pages of Mr. Schiller's essay on " Faith, 
 Reason, and Religion " in Studies on Humanism. 
 
xii WARNING TO READERS OF THIS EDITION 
 
 I do not except Professor James himself from this 
 statement), one leads astray not only the masses, but 
 a good many readers who, although not university 
 people, belong decidedly to the intellectual aristoc- 
 racy. I will say more; several university scholars 
 who were not especially philosophers, but mathe- 
 maticians, scientists, linguists, even psychologists, 
 were deceived by the obscurity, or, rather, confusion 
 of pragmatist writings; and this confusion which 
 did not a little contribute to the success of which 
 pragmatism can boast, was achieved by using always 
 at the critical places some technical terms covering 
 risky theories. In my criticism I had in mind just 
 those people ; it was enough to tell in plain language 
 what pragmatism was, to expose it. Indeed, as I 
 have pointed out often, both in the text and in notes, 
 many, and of course the most important objections 
 to pragmatism have been made by others, — I refer 
 especially to such excellent criticisms as those of 
 Professor Creighton, Philosophical Review, XIII, 
 p. 3; XV, p. 5; XVII, p. 6; Professor Hibben, 
 Philosophical Review, XVII, p. 4; Dr. Carus, 
 Monist, XVIII, p. 3 ; XIX, p. i ; Professor Bake- 
 well, Philosophical Review, XVII, p. 6, to speak 
 only of American critics,^ — and if I had wanted to 
 write only for a strictly philosophical public, my 
 book would have been in many places a mere repeti- 
 tion of criticisms which had been made already. 
 
 * Professor Pratt's book What is Pragmatism? came out after 
 A nti-Pragm^tism, 
 
WARNING TO READERS OF THIS EDITION xiii 
 
 I have not any desire to ignore various criticisms 
 directed against Anti-Pragmatism up to the present 
 time. If I have not thought it advisable to make 
 considerable alterations or add many notes in the 
 text itself of this edition, answers to several objec- 
 tions will be found in Appendix A. 
 
 A. S. 
 
 October, 1909. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 " Pragmatism " is only a new term to designate 
 " Opportunism " in philosophy. As a doctrine it 
 does not make good. But pragmatism as revealing 
 a certain state of mind in our present generation has 
 a profound significance. 
 
 We declare pragmatism to be bad, not indeed in 
 its moral consequences (which, as a matter of fact, 
 ought not to count in philosophy), but because it 
 introduces into our fashion of thinking a degrading 
 sophistry. Pragmatism, in its modern systematized 
 form, would scarcely have been possible in earlier 
 times. It has, however, become so since erudite 
 scholars and original thinkers have deemed it fit to 
 cater to a public incapable of taking a genuine inter- 
 est in their researches and their speculations, a pub- 
 lic which in the last resort wishes simply to amuse 
 itself with these as it amuses itself with everything 
 else, — the public of our modern democracies. We 
 feel flattered by the plaudits of the crowd, and to 
 procure these we are satisfied to get down to the 
 level of those whom as thinkers we should disdain. 
 Popular science, popular art, popular theology — 
 only one thing was lacking — popular philosophy. 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 And now they give that to us. What a triumph for 
 a weak cause ! 
 
 Another thing. The complexion of thought in 
 our times, our so-called tolerance, holds back the arm 
 when we ought to strike the blow ; and our nervous 
 anxiety to do justice, which we call scientific, makes 
 us too fearful altogether of protesting vigorously 
 against certain ideas in the air about us. Let any 
 kind of a so-called philosophic concoction be served 
 out to us and we accept it with such respect that we 
 almost seem to approve it. However, there are 
 theories which, for the sake of our philosophic pro- 
 bity, we ought not to tolerate. Pragmatism is one 
 of these. It ought to be smothered in its cradle. 
 In dealing with it, we misinterpret a principle of 
 modern criticism not in itself false, " this thing is, 
 therefore it ought to be." 
 
 But pragmatism, while fain to draw us far from 
 the forthright way, is perhaps going to save us, 
 after all. It may serve as the last drop of water to 
 cause an overflow in the vase of philosophic mis- 
 understandings. We have been going astray long 
 enough. Thanks to pragmatism the blind will 
 perhaps end by seeing the bad road over which 
 we have been travelling, the deaf at last hear the 
 cacophony of " democratic thought," and those who 
 have become paralytic through the desperate confu- 
 sion due to our indulgence as scholars will be freed 
 from their ankylosis and will walk again. 
 
 Professor William James himself, in discussing 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 the importance of the revolution which pragmatism 
 must introduce, has ventured, in the way of com- 
 parison, to recall the Reformation of the sixteenth 
 century. If he means by this to suggest the conver- 
 sion of the public at large, to pragmatic ideas, I 
 would submit that this has taken place long ago, 
 and that our age is as pragmatic as it is possible for 
 it to be. If he had in mind a reform in philosophy, 
 he is perhaps not wrong. But one would like to 
 hope that, in the case of thinking people at least, 
 pragmatists be not regarded as modern Luthers and 
 Calvins, but rather as the venders of philosophic 
 indulgences who have preceded the true reformers 
 and made them necessary.^ 
 
 Note, however, that I have no reproach to urge 
 against society for being pragmatic ; that is to say, 
 for watching over its own interests. On the con- 
 trary, I think it is perfectly legitimate that it should 
 do so. And, beside, the word "interests" may be 
 taken in the widest, or, if you please, most elevated 
 sense. But I do reproach a school of modern phi- 
 losophers for wishing to force, so to speak, imper- 
 sonal philosophy, a moral science, indifferent nature, 
 to speak the same language as our aspirations and 
 our passions — even, I grant, our generous aspira- 
 tions, our noble passions. Our innate and psychic 
 tendencies (in the moral, social, and religious 
 
 * Before Mr. Schiller's modest prophecy: "It is . . . quite true 
 that the undertaking of the new philosophy may be regarded as in 
 some ways the most stupendous in the history of thought " (Preface 
 to the Studies in Humanism, p. viii), one remains speechless. 
 
 b 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 realms) are phenomena for science to record and 
 authenticate, not to justify or legitimize. The epoch 
 of scholasticism ought to be left behind for good 
 and all. 
 
 And this leads me to add a few words rwore to 
 this Introduction. If any one should be inclined to 
 see in these pages attacks on America, the country 
 of pragmatism; and if, especially, certain journal- 
 ists should, in accordance with their custom, make 
 it their pleasure to seek out in my book subjects for 
 sensational and malignant articles, they are hereby 
 informed in advance that they have not understood 
 the book. To be sure, since the pragmatist philos- 
 ophy is rooted in the pragmatic tendencies of man, 
 it was difficult for me not to occupy myself with the 
 last mentioned, and it is almost inevitable that the 
 superficial reader should imagine that I would ex- 
 tend my criticism of a philosophic theory to a prag- 
 matic conception of life itself. But I affirm nothing 
 of the kind. I do not blame America in the least 
 for its pragmatic ideas, any more than I do any other 
 country. I have insisted repeatedly on the distinc- 
 tion to be drawn (between criticism of a philosophy 
 and criticism of life) in such a way that those who 
 know hoiv to read will certainly not be deceived.^ 
 
 Therefore let no one gratuitously ascribe to me 
 opinions about America. I have not expressed any ; 
 
 * I have even approved of these pragmatic traits, both in this 
 volume and elsewhere. See, for example, my article MercantUisme 
 et esthetique en Amerique in La Revue (ancienne Revue des Revues) 
 June, 1906. 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 and any one who should attempt to divine such 
 would almost surely be deceived. The following 
 pages contain merely opinions on pragmatism as 
 a philosophic doctrine. Moreover, the problem that 
 I am discussing — namely, the respective rights of 
 intellectual aristocracy and of modern democracy — 
 is infinitely too large to be reduced to the proportion 
 of an estimate of the intrinsic worth of American 
 civilization. All that it behooves me to say at pres- 
 ent is this : If I have spoken more of American than 
 of other countries when the subject under discussion 
 was the relation of pragmatism to life, it was be- 
 cause I was not entirely free in my choice. In the 
 first place it is in America that pragmatism, as a 
 philosophy, has been formulated in its boldest and 
 most logical form. This alone would justify my 
 action. But there was at the same time another 
 more decisive reason : Although, of course, the 
 pragmatic habit of thought is found in every coun- 
 try, I yet felt impelled to borrow my illustrations 
 from America, very much as a geologist who wishes 
 to study certain minerals scattered over the entire 
 surface of the earth would not necessarily go where 
 he would find the largest number of specimens, but 
 where he could obtain the most varied and the most 
 characteristic. America, less trammelled than other 
 countries by social traditions of all kinds, exhibits 
 more distinctly — that is, with less alloy of hetero- 
 geneous elements — the pragmatic spirit, which is 
 the modern spirit. 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 The central theme, or ground idea, of this volume 
 — namely, that there exists a conflict between intel- 
 lectual truth and moral truth, a conflict that all the 
 ratiocinations of the world will not suppress (for 
 reconcilement is impossible), a conflict that it would 
 be better to accept once for all, without subterfuge, 
 as a fact for which moreover no one is responsible, 
 this idea, I say, has been more than once discussed 
 by me, especially in the form of articles in Euro- 
 pean and American periodicals. For some of these 
 articles I have deemed the present volume to be the 
 proper place, and, in closing, I wish to thank Messrs. 
 Ribot, of the Revue philosophique, Woodbridge, of 
 the Journal of Philosophy, and Burns Weston, of 
 the International Journal of Ethics, for permission 
 to reproduce them here. 
 
 A. S. 
 
PART I 
 
 PRAGMATISM AND INTELLECTUALISM 
 
 Une science ne pent etre normative en tant 
 que theorique (Levy-Bruhl). 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 
 
 I. The end and aim of pragmatism : to reverse the traditional 
 conception of the relations of life and philosophy; the pur- 
 pose of the latter should not be to ascertain and verify the 
 truth but to decree it. — II. The three fundamental argu- 
 ments of pragmatism : a. The intellectual, rationalistic 
 philosophies have not been able to satisfy us; this creates 
 a presumption in favor of pragmatism, b. As a matter of 
 fact man is always pragmatic in his thought; hence prag- 
 matism is the most natural philosophy and the only one of 
 which we are capable, c. Pragmatism claims to possess in 
 its criterion of "the expedient" a basis of agreement for all 
 the philosophies, "the expedient" being a principle which 
 is common to all of them. — III. Refutation of these three 
 arguments : a. All the intellectualist philosophies may be 
 false, but that forms no presumption in favor of the prag- 
 matic method, b. From the fact that all the philosophers 
 think, by nature, subjectively like the pragmatists, there 
 would not result any superiority of pragmatism in principle, 
 bnt there would result this, — dther that the other philos- 
 ophies are worth as much as pragmatism, considered as a 
 philosophy, or that pragmatism is not worth more than 
 they. c. To decide whether pragmatism offers a scientific 
 principle of unity we must distinguish at the outset the 
 principle of the pragmatic "expedient" from that of the scien- 
 tific "expedient" of thinkers like Poincar^, whom the 
 
22 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 pragmatists attempt in vain to claim as one of themselves; 
 one of these principles, the latter, is an intellectual ''expedi- 
 ent" ; the other is really (although it is not so called) a "moral 
 or social" expedient. E. g., the geocentric system, which, 
 according to scientific pragmatism always has been and 
 always will be false; whereas, according to moral (Anglo- 
 Saxon) pragmatism, it would have been correct in the mid- 
 dle ages, but would be false to-day. The gist of the ques- 
 tion is the principle of contradiction to be accepted or not? 
 If it is, then pragmatism is no longer to be distinguished 
 from intellectualism and the pragmatic movement is naught. 
 If it is not, then we deny the possibility of any philosophy 
 at all, pragmatism of course included. — Attempts of the 
 pragmatists to escape from this impasse: Suicidal argu- 
 . . ments of Schiller; James's theory of "Truth," which, when 
 you consider the spirit of it and not the letter, ends by hand- 
 ing over pragmatism, bound hand and foot, to the mercies 
 of intellectualism. 
 
 The real basis of pragmatism, and what explains the possibility 
 of a theory with so slight a chance of life per se: Our science 
 is limited by the laws of knowledge and even in the domains 
 accessible to our faculties it is incomplete. Pragmatism 
 profits by these lacunae. Everywhere, that intellectualism 
 does not bar the way, pragmatism is allowed to propose its 
 theories of social or moral expediences (or opportunism). 
 Conclusion : pragmatism begins where philosophy ends. 
 
 Significant variations in the expression of the pragmatistic 
 thought of William James from 1897 to 1907. — IV. Exam- 
 ination of certain applications of the pragmatic method : 
 Theories of a punitive God and a God of love equally legiti- 
 mate from a pragmatic point of view; speaking precisely, 
 alone this very intellectualism so scorned by. pragmatists 
 can offer a criterion to determine the superiority of one over 
 the other. — V. The pragmatic method is by its nature in- 
 capable of being applied systematically. Examples of 
 three different and incompatible applications of the so-called 
 "philosophical method" by William James: a. In discuss- 
 ing the problem of substance and that of moral conscious- 
 ness, he condemns the employment of metaphysics and of 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 23 
 
 anthropomorphism; b. In discussing the respective claims 
 of idealism (or theism) and materialism, he himself has re- 
 course to metaphysics ; c. Finally, when he comes to examine 
 the question of evil, he neither rejects nor admits it, but 
 adopts a third appHcation of the method; that is to say, he 
 calmly mixes the metaphysical potion in the most convenient 
 way for solving the problem according to "expediency." 
 Refutation of the objection that pragmatism has no desire to 
 become a system : Pragmatism having philosophic preten- 
 sions must be systematic; a philosophy (or a method) is 
 either systematic or it is not. 
 
 Pragmatism ^ would invert the traditional rela- 
 tions established between philosophy and life. In 
 place of regulating our practical conceptions of the 
 world by our theoretical conceptions, it would have 
 us regulate our theoretical conceptions by our prac- 
 tical conceptions. That is to say, in place of ap- 
 proaching the study of phenomena from a point of 
 view purely objective, it proposes to make teleology, 
 or the doctrine of final causes, the corner-stone of 
 our philosophical edifices. " Pragmatism," says 
 Schiller, consists in '' the thorough recognition that 
 
 * It is my purpose to give an account of the doctrines of pragmatism 
 in the following pages, but only for the purpose of refuting them. 
 For the shades of difference beween the various chiefs of the school 
 — from Peirce, who is regarded as the father of modem pragmatism, 
 down to certain recent thinkers in Europe — the reader is referred 
 to the little monograph of Marcel Hebert (Le Pragmatisme. Etude 
 de ses diverses Formes, etc. Paris, 1908. 105 pages. See also certain 
 interpretatioas in Boutroux, Science et Religion. Paris, 1908. Part 
 II), and two articles of Lalande in the Revue philosophique (Febru- 
 ary, 1906 and January, 1908). 
 
24 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 the purposive character of mental life generally 
 must influence and pervade also our most remotely- 
 cognitive activities." (Humanism, p. 8.) " One of 
 the maxims dearest to the pragmatists is this : that 
 the meaning of theories consists entirely in the con^ 
 sequences which their followers may expect from 
 them." (Papini, Popular Science Monthly, Octo- 
 ber, 1907, p. 352.^) ''Truth, for the pragmatist, 
 becomes a class-name for all sorts of definite work- 
 ing values in experience." (James, Pragmatism, p. 
 68; cf. p. 102.) And in place of adopting as a 
 criterion of truth an intellectual or rational principle, 
 wholly impersonal, the pragmatist frankly adopts 
 the principle of a philosophy that agrees with our 
 needs and aspirations. Pragmatism " is, in reality, 
 only the application of Humanism to the theory of 
 knowledge." (Schiller, Humanism, p. xxi.) Our 
 endeavor to learn the truth " is necessarily inspired 
 by the conception of some good at which it aims." 
 {Ihid. p. 10.) " On pragmatic principles we cannot 
 reject any hypothesis if consequences useful to life 
 flow from it." (James, Pragmatism, p. 273.) 
 " * The true,' to put it very briefly, is only the expe- 
 dient in the way of our thinking, just as * the right ' 
 is only the expedient in the way of our behaving." 
 (Ihid. p. 222.) 
 
 In other words, an idea is not true or false in it- 
 self : it becomes so if it is " expedient." " The 
 
 ^ Originally written in Italian. I have seen only the English 
 translation. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 25 
 
 truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent 
 in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, 
 is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an 
 event, a process : the process, namely, of its verify- 
 ing itself, its \tn-fication. Its validity is the process 
 of its YdiW-dation." (James, Pragmatism, p. 201, who 
 here gives a gloss on Schiller, Humanisniy p. xv.) 
 That is to say, in place of ascertaining and verify- 
 ing the truth, philosophy decrees it. '' We receive, 
 in short, the block of marble, but we carve the statue 
 ourselves." {Pragmatism, p. 247.) 
 
 II 
 
 Upon what do they ground their reasoning that 
 they thus propose to revolutionize our ideas on the 
 nature of the true? 
 
 The arguments of the pragmatists may be re- 
 duced to three, as follows : 
 
 I. All philosophical systems that are based on a 
 principle purely intellectual have failed to give satis- 
 faction. Should not that create a presumption in 
 favor of a philosophy that does not select an intel- 
 lectual principle as the fundamental characteristic of 
 truth ? William James recognizes that all philosoph- 
 ical theories have their value, of one sort or another, 
 were it only that of making straight the way for a 
 better (" any one of them may from some point of 
 view be useful," he says), and in this practical and 
 relative application it is worthy of esteem. But 
 
26 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 (and this is more and more recognized by all) " no 
 theory is absolutely a transcript of reality." (Prag- 
 matism, p. 57.) And he concludes as follows: 
 
 " Ought not the existence of the various types of 
 thinking which we have reviewed, each so splendid 
 for certain purposes, yet all conflicting still, and neither 
 one of them able to support a claim of absolute ve- 
 racity, to awaken a presumption favorable to the prag- 
 matistic view that all our theories are instrumental, 
 are mental modes of adaption to reality, rather than 
 revelations or gnostic answers to some divinely insti- 
 tuted world-enigma?" (Ibid. pp. 193-194.) 
 
 2. The second argument may be summed up thus : 
 All of our philosophical theories, whether we suspect 
 it or not, are inspired by practical reasons that look 
 toward pragmatic ends. Pragmatism is really the 
 only philosophy of which man is capable; so he 
 should resign himself to the fate of either not being 
 a philosopher or else being a pragmatist. '' In reality 
 our knowing is driven and guided at every step by 
 our subjective interests and preferences, our desires, 
 our needs, and our ends." (Schiller, Humanism, p. 
 10.) ''Whenever we observe a struggle between 
 two rival theories of events we find that it is ulti- 
 mately the greater conduciveness of the victor to 
 our use and convenience that determines our pref- 
 erence and its consequent acceptance as true." 
 (Ibid. p. 59.) "Human motives sharpen all our 
 questions, human satisfactions lurk in all our an- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 27 
 
 swers, all our formulas have a human twist." 
 (Pragmatism, p. 242.) "In every genuine meta- 
 physical debate some practical issue, however con- 
 jectural and remote, is involved." (Ibid. p. 100.) 
 For example (says Mr. Schiller, Humanism, pp. xi- 
 xii), let us consider two opposite theories or modes 
 of reasoning : 
 
 The world is so bad that there must be a better. 
 The world is so bad that there cannot be a better. 
 
 The second argument alone is strictly logical, not 
 allowing any non-rational or non-intellectual ele- 
 ment of desire or volition to intervene. Indeed if 
 we conceive of a creator who has the power of mak- 
 ing a better world it is (intellectually) unthinkable 
 that he should not have taken advantage of his power 
 to do so at once; and after such a world we admit 
 that there would be no necessity of trying another. 
 But it is precisely because this reasoning is simply 
 intellectual that men have not adopted it, and have 
 preferred the first theory, in which there is that idea 
 of desire and that element of volition which convince 
 humanity of the truth of a theory. It is a fact that 
 we reason and decide thus, a fact that nobody can 
 oppose. Mr. Schiller adds that he who declares he 
 prefers the second theory probably deceives himself, 
 believing that disinterested and intellectual consid- 
 erations have guided him in his choice. But " it may 
 have been a pessimist's despair that clothed itself in 
 the habiliments of logic or it may have been merely 
 stupidity and apathy, a want of . imagination and 
 
28 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 enterprise in questioning nature." On close exam- 
 ination we should probably find that reasonings of 
 the second type (purely intellectual) " never really 
 occur." 
 
 Professor James carries even farther than Mr. 
 Schiller this argument that temperament decides 
 opinion. He likes constantly to oppose monistic 
 rationalism to empiricism : *' And let me say that it 
 is impossible not to see a temperamental difference 
 at work in the choice between the two philosophies." 
 {Pragmatism, p. 259.) Again, elsewhere: " To in- 
 terpret absolute monism worthily, be a mystic." 
 And he adds instances from Hindoo Vedantists: 
 " You do not reason, but after going through a 
 certain discipline, you see, and having seen, you can 
 report the truth." {Ihid. p. 151.) In a more gen- 
 eralizing way : " The history of philosophy is to a 
 great extent that of a certain clash of human tem- 
 peraments. . . . Temperament is no conventionally 
 recognized reason; so a philosopher urges imper- 
 sonal reasons only for his conclusions. Yet his 
 temperament really gives him a stronger bias than 
 any of his more strictly objective premises." {Ihid. 
 pp. 6, 7.) He cites, as examples of great thinkers 
 by temperament, Plato, Hegel, Spencer. 
 
 Now starting from the fact that it is not possible 
 for the thing to be otherwise than just stated, Wil- 
 liam James passes to the second affirmation, — that 
 there is reason to believe that the truth must sub- 
 stantially correspond to our aspirations: 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 29 
 
 *' Surely you must admit this, that if there were no 
 good for life in true ideas, or if the knowledge of them 
 were positively disadvantageous, and false ideas the 
 only useful ones, then the current notion that truth 
 is divine and precious, and its pursuit a duty, could 
 never have grown up or become a dogma. . . . What 
 would be better for us to believe! This sounds very 
 like a definition of truth. It comes very near to saying 
 * what we ought to believe ' ; and in that definition 
 none of you would find any oddity. Ought we never 
 not to believe what it is better for us to believe ? And 
 can we then keep the notion of what is better for 
 us, and what is true for us, permanently apart?" 
 (Pragmatism, pp. 76-77.) 
 
 And here is the way Mr. Schiller for his part 
 (Humanism, p. xiii) passes from the just-mentioned 
 opinion — that our theories are always inspired by 
 pragmatic considerations — to the other, that it is 
 philosophically legitimate that it should be so ; " that 
 the canons of right Thought must, even from the 
 most narrowly logical of standpoints, be brought 
 into some relation to the procedures of actual think- 
 ing; that in point of fact the former are derived 
 from the latter ; that if so, our first mode of reason- 
 ing must receive logical recognition because it is not 
 only usual, but useful in the discovery of truth, that 
 a process which yields valuable results must in some 
 sense be valid. . . ." ^ 
 
 ^ Perhaps I ought to cite here Prof. Dewey, who devotes the first 
 part of his essay, Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Moral- 
 ity (University of Chicago Press, 1903), to the task of assimilating 
 
30 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 3. Pragmatism, while in agreement with the facts 
 — and in this they tell us it differs from intellec- 
 tualist systems — furnishes us a unifying principle 
 for the co-ordination of our philosophical specula- 
 tions. It did this in the past, unknown, to us. 
 " There is absolutely nothing new in the pragmatic 
 method. Socrates was an adept at it. Aristotle used 
 it methodically. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume made 
 momentous contributions to the truth by its means. 
 Shadworth Hodgson keeps insisting that realities are 
 only what they are ^ known as.' " (Pragmatism, p. 
 50.) But it was only employed sporadically by cer- 
 tain philosophers, within certain limits and upon cer- 
 tain subjects. If it is now applied consciously, me- 
 thodically, and constantly, the philosophical value 
 of the principle will be revealed ; it will be found to 
 contain the element common to all the doctrines of 
 the past, the present, and the future, that which may 
 serve as a common bond between them all. 
 
 As a matter of fact, this rather negative argument 
 amounts to this : The pragmatic idea, being the spon- 
 taneous, human conception — a conception even nec- 
 essary since it is inevitable — is to be looked for 
 
 (on logical ground) scientific judgments to moral judgments, both one 
 and the other (a) being inspired by the desire to solve some special 
 problem, "individual case"; and (b) being acts by which the scientist 
 or the philosopher focusses his judgment (upon those "individual 
 cases"). Although expressed in very technical scholastic terminology 
 this is at bottom the same doctrine as that above indicated in the 
 text In its ulterior developments the doctrine of Prof. Dewey is dis- 
 tinct from that of Messrs. James and Schiller. The two last named 
 seem to me to be the only pragmatists who are dyed in the grain. 
 We shall encounter Dewey elsewhere in this volume. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 31 
 
 everywhere, and a philosophy which should make it 
 its starting point would never be in conflict with any 
 truth. The pragmatists themselves usually formu- 
 late this argument negatively : " Pragmatism does 
 not stand for any special results " (Pragmatism, p. 
 51) ; but neither does it by any means reject any of 
 them- a priori: " It agrees with nominalism for in- 
 stance, in always appealing to particulars ; with util- 
 itarianism in emphasizing practical aspects; with 
 positivism in its disdain for verbal solutions, useless 
 questions, and metaphysical abstractions." (Ibid. 
 PP- 53» 54-) ''On pragmatic principles we cannot 
 reject any hypothesis if consequences useful to life 
 flow from it. . . . But if they have any use they 
 have that amount of meaning. And the meaning 
 will be true if the use squares well with life's other 
 uses." (Ibid. p. 273.) The pragmatists further 
 recognize that a philosophic unity such as that so 
 long dreamed of by thinkers is not peradventure 
 within the scope, or range, of their method. Yet 
 without claiming to furnish a principle of absolute 
 cohesion, they boast of having adroitly avoided the 
 usual clashings between different doctrines. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Let us now take up again the three foregoing 
 arguments. 
 
 I. Why should the fact that the intellectualist 
 applications of rationalism and of empiricism are 
 
32 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 unsatisfactory create a presumption in favor of 
 pragmatism? If we are unable to put our trust in 
 Peter or John, does that create a presumption in 
 favor of James? In order to give the argument 
 weight and pith, pragmatists ought to have proved 
 to us, first, that these three are the only possible phi- 
 losophies, and, secondly, that one of the three must 
 be true. Now there is absolutely nothing in the 
 world that justifies this restriction to rationalism, 
 empiricism, or pragmatism. And even supposing it 
 were justified, ought we to believe that the failure 
 of the first two is an established thing? To set 
 about doing that, our opponents might base their 
 arguments on two kinds of proof : (a) ^ posteriori, 
 by demonstrating the insufficiency of the doctrines, 
 so far presented under the names "rationalism" and 
 " empiricism." But that is a different thing from 
 proving that all the possibilities of these two meth- 
 ods have been exhausted; that could never be 
 proved a posteriori, (b) If the method of attack 
 were a priori they would, it is true, have in that a 
 substantial argument against intellectualism in all its 
 forms. For, the laws of thought — of pure reason, 
 as Kant says — lead us into contradictions. Sup- 
 pose we take, for instance, the idea of space : to the 
 intellect it contains contradictions. The intellect is 
 always obliged to think of space in general as a 
 juxtaposition of finite spaces. Now the addition of 
 as many finite spaces as you please will never give 
 you anything but finite space. On the other hand, 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 33 
 
 since we cannot conceive of the possibility of a limit 
 to these finite spaces, space must be infinite ; the two 
 ideas impose themselves on the mind with equal 
 force, and they are irreconcilable. Three at least 
 of the antimonies of Kant are irreducible (time, 
 space, and first cause) ; they never have been and 
 never will be refuted; at the very utmost they can 
 only be explained ; but to explain is not to suppress. 
 The result of all this is that a philosophy based on 
 pure reason can never a priori claim to be true, since 
 we cannot conceive of the true as contradictory. 
 Mr. Schiller somewhere alludes to this fact. He is 
 right, however, in not insisting upon it, because the 
 pragmatists would gain nothing by it. Like all 
 other philosophers they are in search of a truth, and 
 it is very evident that, to get it, " the liberty of their 
 spirits " is subjected to the same yoke that we wear, 
 the same laws of thought. In fact they subject 
 themselves to these laws in so far as they compare 
 and contrast pragmatism with empiricism and ra- 
 tionalism. Things are only compared and con- 
 trasted when they have some point of contact. The 
 basis of comparison of the three philosophies of 
 which we are speaking is their respective ability to 
 gratify the demands of the intellect. What the 
 pragmatists can do, and what we all do, is to seek 
 out hypotheses and explanatory principles that sat- 
 isfy our reason (within the limits of the laws of 
 knowledge) better and more completely than pres- 
 ent systems and hypotheses. 
 
 3 
 
34 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 Some one may say : But suppose you have elabo- 
 rated a system intellectually perfect, one that in- 
 cludes all the phenomena, still can we always 
 conceive that there may chance to be another expla- 
 nation which would, intellectually, account for every- 
 thing; now, when you have these two explications 
 you could never be absolutely sure which is the 
 truth. I reply : Pragmatism is in the same predica- 
 ment. It is useless to tell us that, besides the intel- 
 lectual criterion, pragmatism possesses a practical 
 criterion ; for this satisfaction of our practical aspi- 
 rations by a philosophy may itself be only the result 
 of chance. 
 
 Thus compared with former philosophical concep- 
 tions, pragmatism has in itself nothing that a priori 
 can more commend it to the favor of the devotee of 
 pure thought. 
 
 2. The thing upon which the pragmatists rely — 
 that there is always underneath our reasonings 
 some practical consideration, and that even the sys- 
 tems of the great philosophers are only the result of 
 the temperament of their authors — may be true. 
 Yet the conclusion, that therefore philosophic truth 
 is to be found in reasonings modified and colored by 
 the practical and the temperamental, that the crite- 
 rion of truth is " that which we ought to believe " 
 for pragmatic reasons — this conclusion is notori- 
 ously illegitimate. 
 
 In order to get it accepted they are obliged to have 
 recourse to a confusion of ideas which itself rests 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 35 
 
 upon the double meaning of the verb must: (a) we 
 " must " think pragmatically in this sense, that we 
 are so made by nature that practical considerations 
 direct our thoughts; (b) we "must" think prag- 
 matically in the sense that, philosophically speaking 
 (logically or even morally), it is well for us so to 
 think. The first meaning is readily proved, and 
 then, for further deductions, the second is quietly 
 substituted for it. The sleight-of-hand trick is not 
 our invention. Let us recall the words of Mr. 
 Schiller : 
 
 " The canons of right thought must ... be brought 
 into some relation to the procedures of actual think- 
 ing; in point of fact the former are derived from 
 the latter [first meaning] ; if so, our first mode of 
 reasoning must receive logical recognition [substitu- 
 tion of logic for psychology : second meaning] ; . . . 
 a process which yields valuable results must in some 
 sense be valid [second meaning]." (Humanism, 
 p. xiii.) 
 
 Elsewhere it is the word can that is juggled with : 
 
 " Our interests impose the conditions under which 
 alone Reality can be revealed. . . . Neither the ques- 
 tion of fact, therefore, nor the question of knowledge 
 can be raised without raising also the question of 
 value." {Hiimanisniy p. 10.) 
 
 First meaning: It is impossible, because of our 
 nature, to conceive of reality independently of our 
 interests; hence (second meaning) it is impossible 
 
36 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 to raise — that is, we ought not to raise — the 
 question of fact or knowledge without that of prac- 
 tical value. Mr. Schiller may in vain try to defend 
 himself; the discussion always returns to the sub- 
 stitution of the logical this ought to be for the psy- 
 chological this is. 
 
 One could be less pessimistic than the pragmatists 
 and still think that it is not impossible to be imper- 
 sonal in philosophic thought. But they have their 
 reason for being categorical on this point ; we shall 
 observe this presently. For the moment I will only 
 remark that even if they had thoroughly established 
 the assertion that the subjective element is always 
 present in intellectualist and scientific theories, they 
 would be deceived if they thought the battle of prag- 
 matism thereby won. This assimilation of the two 
 classes of theories (the logical and the psychologi- 
 cal) would prove, to any independent thinker, not 
 as pragmatists would like to have it, that the latter 
 (psychological theories) are worth as much as the 
 former (logical), but rather that the former are 
 worth as little as the latter. The two things are 
 quite different. And thus pragmatists could not 
 claim in the least to have laid the foundations of a 
 new philosophic structure beside the structures of 
 the intellectualist philosophy, but in overthrowing 
 existing structures they would have buried them- 
 selves beneath the ruins. As Professor Creighton 
 says so well : " If the nature of a large whole does 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 37 
 
 not function constitutively within it in the form of 
 universal principles, then all tests of truth are im- 
 possible, practical tests no less than theoretical. 
 
 . . ." {Philosophical Reviezv,yilll,^o, 2i^^' ^9^-) 
 Finally, let us even admit that in imposing the 
 subjective element to scientific reasoning, they have 
 not thereby ruined the logical value of the latter; 
 we should still only have as a result the equality of 
 intellectualism and pragmatism; while the point at 
 issue is the establishing of the superiority of the 
 latter over the former. This leads us to the third 
 argument : 
 
 3. Pragmatism, by bringing forward a principle 
 that co-ordinates all true theories, thereby fulfils the 
 conditions of a philosophy. The pragmatists may 
 have erred in the two preceding arguments; it 
 would matter little if it were found that they are 
 right in this. 
 
 What is this principle? The principle of " expe- 
 diency." The definition of truth being " the expe- 
 diency in the way of our thinking " {Pragmatism, 
 p. 222), pragmatism will not come into collision 
 with any hostile force or obstruction (intellectual- 
 ist or other) — and it will not recognize any other 
 — except that of the inexpedient. To quote again 
 the words of Professor James I cited a few pages 
 back, " On pragmatic principles we cannot reject 
 any hypothesis if consequences useful to life flow 
 from it." {Pragmatism, p. 273.) "We receive 
 the block of marble but we carve the statue our- 
 selves." {Ibid. p. 247.) 
 
38 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 This is a very remarkable thing! So it is out of 
 this very subjectivity of which I was just speaking 
 that the fundamental principle can be formed. It 
 it easy to understand now why the pragmatists per- 
 sisted in finding it everywhere. If they gave them- 
 selves so much trouble to point it out constantly, it 
 was surely not because they wanted to make no use 
 of it whatever. Only, while heretofore they had 
 excused themselves, so to speak, for admitting it 
 into philosophy (laying stress upon our dependence 
 on it as regards the laws of thought, or, again re- 
 ferring to the logical value of the subjective even in 
 the scientific hypothesis, and limiting themselves to 
 saying that therefore we should not reject pragma- 
 tism on the pretext that it presupposes subjectivity), 
 they now suddenly change their tactics, and pass 
 from the defensive to the offensive. This subjective 
 element in philosophy not only is not illegitimate, or 
 an obstruction or a nuisance; and not only should 
 we refrain from asking pardon for giving it recogni- 
 tion in science, but it is affirmed that really it alone 
 gives value to our theories; that where it is not 
 there is death; and that the fact that pragmatism 
 makes it the corner-stone of its philosophical edifice 
 is just that which gives it superiority over intellec- 
 tualism. From the condition of a poor pariah, in 
 which it existed but yesterday, this subjectivity is 
 suddenly raised to royal rank. 
 
 It will readily be perceived that we have reached 
 the critical point of the pragmatic doctrine. How 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 39 
 
 can this '' expediency '' or this '' subjectivity " so 
 suddenly change roles? Is it really the same sub- 
 jectivity as that of yesterday, or, indeed, has the 
 value of the term changed in passing from intellec- 
 tualism to pragmatism? It is to be observed that 
 it is precisely at this point of the demonstration of 
 their doctrine that the defenders of pragmatism 
 grow less clear and less precise, that they no longer 
 operate on the fighting-line of their proper specula- 
 tions but are fain to fall back on a line of thought 
 in the philosophy of science recently created by 
 Poincare and certain other French scientists (cf. 
 Pragmatism, pp. 55-57).^ These savants seem to 
 have come just in the nick of time. Among other 
 things they insist on the relative and subjective char- 
 acter of science. They affirm that a scientific theory 
 is nothing in itself, and takes its value solely from 
 the results that we derive from it in our verification 
 of phenomena ; that the ultimate aim of the scientist 
 is not at all the discovery of laws as the world has 
 been so long affirming, but the explanation of the 
 fact; we call a law "true" when, and because, it 
 
 ^ For an enumeration of scholars and thinkers who are, with or 
 without consent, pointed out to the world as pragmatists, see Mr. 
 Schiller's Preface to Studies in Humanism. In this volume I never 
 speak of Bergson, an authority constantly referred to by pragmatists. 
 After all the merit of Bergson consists chiefly in having battered 
 down modern dogmatism in philosophy. What will come out of it 
 all is not very clear as yet, but so far his work seems rather nega- 
 tive. In a recently published volume, one reads the following inter- 
 esting statement by Wm. James: "I have to confess that Bergson's 
 originality is so profuse that many of his ideas baflSe me entirely" 
 {A Pluralistic Universe, p. 226). 
 
40 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 gives practical results in its application, but not at 
 all because it may be true or not per se; for, of that 
 we can know nothing; and, in fact, when we find a 
 law and a phenomenon that absolutely contradict 
 each other, it is not the phenomenon that we are 
 in a position to modify but the law. 
 
 It is easy to see what fascination lay for the prag- 
 matists in these ideas, and they were not long in 
 seeking an alliance with the French thinkers. This 
 is exactly what we wish, they say : to judge a theory 
 by results ; the true is that which yields results, and 
 we do not adopt any other criterion than that ; if cer- 
 tain philosophical doctrines enter into conflict with 
 life, it is the philosophical theory we ought to reject 
 and not the claims of life. 
 
 This is very clever, and at first glance seems 
 plausible. But appearances are deceiving. As a 
 matter of fact there is nothing more different, more 
 fundamentally irreconcilable, than the ideas of the 
 French school of Poincare and those of pragmatism. 
 The possibility of the deceptive association and fra- 
 ternization of the two comes simply from the indefi- 
 nite meaning of certain terms, such as " expedient," 
 "useful," "result." To be convinced of this we 
 need only extend the definitions a little, to express 
 the sub-meanings, the thought underneath the writ- 
 ten words. We will then see that by the French 
 school, Poincare for example, a law is declared to be 
 true when it gives scientific results; that is to say 
 (speaking briefly), when it serves to explain natural 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 41 
 
 phenomena. By the Anglo-Saxon pragmatists a 
 theory or a law is declared to be true when it gives 
 results that are desirable from a moral point of view, 
 when it is socially useful or expedient. The differ- 
 ence between the two theories is now at once evident 
 — and at the same time one sees the subtlety of the 
 representatives of moral pragmatism who suggest 
 this astonishing identification of utility in the sense 
 of scientific expediency and utility in the sense of 
 moral expediency. The formulating of theories ser- 
 viceable in explaining facts — such is scientific prag- 
 matism (if you will call it so) ; the formulating of 
 theories to justify a moral ideal — such is the prag- 
 matism of the philosophers who cultivate what we 
 may call moral pragmatism. In other words, the 
 latter will not simply accept or reject scientific laws 
 or theories because they give account of reality 
 (which would be a very legitimate thing), but be- 
 cause they do or do not render an account of reality 
 as we wish it to he. The subjectivism of modern 
 thinkers amounts simply to this, that it reaffirms 
 what Hume and Kant had firmly established, but 
 which had of late dropped out of sight for a little, 
 owing to the too broad interpretations of modern 
 positivism; — namely, that the laws are within us 
 and not outside of us, and that, so far from these 
 laws inhering in phenomena, we make them our- 
 selves, after a fashion, since in order to comprehend 
 them we have to adapt them to our knowing facul- 
 ties. There is no discussion by scholars of the Poin- 
 
42 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 care type of subjectivity in the sense that the thinker 
 may, as seems " expedient," adopt this or that doc- 
 trine or law; the subjectivity of the savant is 
 as predetermined in its elements, and as prede- 
 termined by phenomena in its judgments, as of 
 yore; and it is a mere piece of pleasantry to wish 
 to make use of this epistemological subjectivism to 
 form the basis of a philosophy which claims that 
 with it " human arbitrariness has driven divine ne- 
 cessity from scientific logic." (Pragmatism, p. 57.) 
 So far from corroborating each other, the two sub- 
 jectivisms exclude each other. For instance, Wil- 
 liam Jamics observes (Pragmatism, p. 115 ff.) that, 
 in order to admit the sense of responsibility, if we 
 stand by the rationalistic or intellectualistic point of 
 view, we have need at once of determinism and free- 
 dom of the will ; pragmatic subjectivism allows then 
 to intervene and impose on us the belief in the free- 
 dom of the will. A scientific pragmatist will never 
 admit that, and precisely because of his personal sub- 
 jectivism, he submits to laws of thought which for- 
 bid him to conceive of the coexistence of moral 
 responsibility (which presupposes determinism) and 
 the freedom of the will. If you should tell him 
 there are facts which compel us to admit this co- 
 existence he will deny the facts, — in this sense, that 
 the facts in themselves do not exist for us ; what we 
 call facts are just interpretations of facts, and the 
 intellectualist would declare that the facts are not 
 acceptable to him unless interpreted in such a way 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 43 
 
 as to satisfy subjectivism, or, let us say, scientific 
 pragmatism ; that is to say, the laws of thought and 
 of logic. " Everything that is not thought," says 
 Poincare (Valetir de la science, p. 276), is pure 
 nothingness. Inasmuch as we can only think 
 thought, and all the words we employ in speaking 
 of things can only express thought [this is what 
 I have called '' interpretations of facts "], to say that 
 there is anything else than thought is therefore an 
 affirmation devoid of sense." ^ 
 
 * It must be admitted, however, that certain French philosophers 
 have sometimes encouraged the confusion between moral pragmatism 
 and scientific pragmatism. Le Roy, for example, and with an aim 
 which implies the same prepossessions as those of James. But (need 
 it be said ?) that does not render the confusion more acceptable. 
 
 I am not aware that Poincare has ever explicitly stated his posi- 
 tion with regard to his unsolicited pragmatist friends; but here are 
 a few lines from an article "The Choice of Facts" which he published 
 recently in the Monist (April, 1909) and which are of interest at this 
 point of our discussion. "The scientist," he says, ''does not study 
 nature because it is useful ; he studies it because he delights in it. . . ." 
 (pp. 236-237.) Or again: "The people whose ideal most conformed to 
 their highest interest , . . pursued their ideals without reference to 
 consequences, but while the quest led some to destruction, to others 
 it gave empire. . . ." (p. 238.) No possible doubt remains here 
 that Poincare wants to distinguish between pragmatic consequences 
 and scientific consequences; even, to moral consequences he remains 
 quite indifferent. 
 
 The confusion I have pointed out in the preceding pages has also 
 been admirably emphasized in the luminous article of Professor J. G. 
 Hibben, "The Test of Pragmatism" {Philosophical Review, July, 
 1908). "The whole modern spirit of research is most emphatically 
 opposed to the pragmatist's suggestion that we should endeavor to 
 make the phenomena of the universe bend to our will. Indeed it 
 insists above all things that the investigator, in whatever field, should 
 seek by patient laborious observation to know the nature of the given 
 phenomena as they actually are in all of their essential and character- 
 istic features. , , ." (p. 380.) "The fact is that whenever there is 
 
44 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 The key to the confusion of thought is so plainly- 
 right here, that I do not hesitate to give one more 
 concrete illustration in order that the reader may 
 put his finger on the difference between modern 
 scientific subjectivism and pragmatic subjectivism, 
 Poincare shows that we can very properly maintain, 
 scientifically, the two ideas that the earth revolves 
 about the sun and that the sun revolves about the 
 earth, — the first of the two theories by placing our- 
 selves, so to speak, outside of the solar system and 
 observing what takes place. We then see the tiny 
 earth circling about the vast sun ; it is the simplest 
 and most normal way of regarding the matter. But 
 the inhabitant of the earth rightly maintains that 
 from his point of view, the sun revolves about the 
 earth, and he proceeds to demonstrate it. He is 
 obliged to have recourse to calculations and demon- 
 strations much more complex; that is the only dif- 
 ference. In truth, he proves the same thing as the 
 first. Here we have scientific subjectivism. Both 
 
 a demand for cash value, then the real [logical] value is always sub- 
 jected to some discounting process." (p. 369.) 
 
 Then again the papers by Professor J, E. Creighton in the Phil- 
 osophical Review ought to be recalled here. As early as 1904 he 
 called the attention of philosophers to the inadmissible confusion, 
 saying: "The appeal is to experience . . . but to experience as system- 
 atized by thought" (XIII, No. 3, p. 291); and more precisely still 
 he refers to "the ambiguity that in this use attaches to the word 
 'practical,' as well as to the terms 'end' and 'purpose.' These 
 words seem to be employed by this theory to cover two modes of 
 consciousness that are usually, at least, regarded as essentially dif- 
 ferent. . . ." (p. 295.) (Cf. also "Experience and Thought" by the 
 same. Philosophical Review, XV, No. 5, pp. 482-483.) 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 45 
 
 positions or arguments are true. So a child is not 
 (subjectively) wrong in saying, while he is aboard 
 a moving train, that he is standing still and the 
 fields and trees are passing along before him, while 
 for us (objectively) it is rather the child and the 
 train that are passing. You do not choose between 
 one theory or another, you simply choose the method 
 of presenting one and the same idea. Moral prag- 
 matism, on the other hand, is pluralist; it talks 
 about truths in the plural." (Pragmatism, p. 67.) 
 Let us in imagination transport ourselves to the six- 
 teenth century and examine the same theme — the 
 movement of the earth and the sun — from the 
 pragmatic point of view. At that epoch any one 
 contesting the orthodox belief in the current geomet- 
 ric or cosmological system would shake the power 
 of the church, and the church of that time was try- 
 ing very hard to civilize Europe. To unsettle this 
 civilizing force might have terrible consequences, 
 replunge the masses into a barbarism from which 
 they were " still pawing to be free." It was there- 
 fore pragmatically expedient that for some time yet 
 the sun should continue to revolve around the earth 
 — absolutely so, of course, and not in the relative 
 sense of Poincare's second case. Whatever we 
 might think about the matter to-day, in the sixteenth 
 century, in order to conform to its principles, prag- 
 matism would have been obliged to sustain a theory 
 in contradiction with science and also in contradic- 
 
46 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 tion with the pragmatism of the nineteenth century. 
 There you have pragmatic subjectivism.^ 
 
 I have purposely referred to an instance that Pro- 
 fessor James himself had chosen (among others) to 
 prove his conception of pragmatism. Did he choose 
 it in a kind of defiant spirit of knightly challenge to 
 rightly and duly show that he did not fear for his 
 philosophy the most difficult of tests? I know not. 
 But in any case he presents the matter from an en- 
 tirely wrong angle or point of view. Nothing is 
 better adapted to imparting confusion to the dis- 
 cussion than his amphibological method of express- 
 ing himself. Not only does he profit by the fact 
 that an unforewarned person would not suspect this 
 confusion of the intellectualist and pragmatistic 
 subjectivism which I have carefully distinguished: 
 he suggests and provokes the confusion in the reader 
 in whom it did not previously exist. In brief, he 
 obscures (he is obliged to obscure), for the require- 
 ments of his argument, what was before clear. 
 Listen to his statement : 
 
 " Ptolemaic astronomy, Euclidean space, Aristo- 
 telian logic, scholastic metaphysics, were expedient 
 for centuries, but human experience has boiled over 
 those limits and we now call these things only rela- 
 tively true or true within those borders of experience." 
 (Pragmatism, p. 223.) 
 
 * It is probably superfluous to add that the argument here pur- 
 sued would not be refuted should some one take it into his head to 
 try to prove that the church was not a civilizing power in the six- 
 teenth century. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 47 
 
 This means that, although to-day the Ptolemaic 
 theory is left behind, it might be true for the learned 
 men of the middle ages, who did not possess the 
 great and overwhelming body of facts that we now 
 have. It is clear that the idea of " opportunism " or 
 '' expediency " involved here is to be taken in the 
 intellectualist sense. James adds further : " 'Abso* 
 lutely ' they (these theories) are false; for we know 
 that those limits (of experience) were casual, and 
 might have been transcended by past theorists just 
 as they are by present thinkers." And all this is 
 perfectly evident. Only now, if James has employed 
 the word " expedient " in the intellectualist or sci- 
 entific sense, he no longer has the right to use it in 
 the pragmatic or moral sense. But this is just what 
 he does ; it is precisely what he is obliged to do if he 
 wishes to draw conclusions and make inferences 
 from scientific relativism or opportunism to the 
 pragmatic relativism or opportunism that he intro- 
 duces into philosophy. Here is a passage that shows 
 the adroit way in which he suggests the substitution : 
 '' We say this theory solves a problem on the whole 
 more satisfactorily than that theory ; but that means 
 more satisfactorily to ourselves, and individuals will 
 emphasize their points of satisfaction differently." 
 (Pragmatism, p. 61.) It is evidently no longer a 
 satisfaction purely intellectual of which he is here 
 speaking. 
 
 Of course James was too clever to state the helio- 
 centric theory in terms of moral pragmatism after 
 
48 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 he had expressed it in those of the intellectualist 
 pragmatism, for that would have been to let the cat 
 out of the bag. Now, since that is just what I want 
 — to let the cat out of the bag — I will take the 
 liberty once more of speaking for him as follows, 
 in words that moral pragmatism would have to use. 
 In the middle ages the heliocentric theory was not 
 only not true intellectually for the scholastic phi- 
 losophers, for their scientific experience was limited, 
 but it was not true, morally, — and this is the essen- 
 tial point, — for it was baneful in the special condi- 
 tions of society existing at that time. To-day the 
 true progress of humanity is not affected one way 
 or the other by the heliocentric theory, so it may be 
 correct. In scientific opportunism it is the intel- 
 lectual criterion alone that counts and this criterion 
 is always the same; in moral opportunism it is the 
 ethical point of view that counts, both to-day and 
 in the middle ages, and this criterion is different 
 according to circumstances. 
 
 And so true is it that Professor James aims ulti- 
 mately and exclusively at meliorism (which is of 
 moral nature), that he finally, without hesitation, 
 admits metaphysical pluralism (which is of intel- 
 lectual nature), a doctrine he had just denied; 
 " * absolutely ' they (these theories) are false . . . 
 and might have been transcended by past theorists 
 just as they are by present thinkers." Only by ad- 
 mitting several different philosophical, or logical, or 
 metaphysical, or intellectual principles, can he main- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 40 
 
 tain the rights of the expedient in the " mehorist " 
 sense in a way to give more satisfaction to us, — a 
 satisfaction that individuals will each express in a 
 different way. And that is what he wants. 
 
 Thus it is clear that " the expedient," as the cri- 
 terion of our method of thought either signifies 
 nothing, or else it signifies that the pragmatists de- 
 clare themselves independent of every intellectual 
 principle, among others of the principle of contra- 
 diction. If this is not so, in what would consist the 
 quarrel they pick with intellectualism ? Why all this 
 agitation and the creation of a whole philosoph- 
 ical movement which is likely to " equal in impor- 
 tance the Reformation of the sixteenth century " 
 if it is not going to reform anything at all? The 
 pragmatists, besides, are profuse in their assertions 
 that they have come forward for the purpose of pro- 
 testing against the postulates of intellectualism, 
 against " those cramping rules and regulations by 
 which the Brahmins of the academic cast are 
 tempted to impede the free expansion of human 
 life" (Humanism, p. xvi), against that tyranny 
 that has hindered us from taking cognizance of facts 
 and has given the finishing touch in its deplorable 
 " monistic music." To all this the thing to do is to 
 oppose the " expedient " or " opportunism." The 
 pragmatic motives, says Mr. Schiller, that dictate the 
 philosophic question, " What is reality? " being dif- 
 ferent, their bearing or application is also different, 
 
50 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 and different must be the replies." (Humanism, p. 
 II.) Mr. Schiller says ''different," not contradic- 
 tory, but this is implied. He knows it very well, for 
 he has said some lines above : " If one had to choose 
 between Irrationalism and Intellectualism, there 
 would be no doubt that the former would have to be 
 preferred." ^ (Ibid. p. 6.) In fact, even supposing 
 there are at the present time no contradictory the- 
 ories in the affirmations of the pragmatists, how are 
 you going to prove there never will be? and since it 
 is admitted that the replies may be really different 
 according to the way the question is asked, it is quite 
 necessary to admit also that these replies will some- 
 times not be in accord. If " different " simply signi- 
 fies, as in scientific subjectivism, that one refers 
 to the same theory presented under a different 
 form, why employ this term " different " in speaking 
 of the theory ? Papini is still more explicit : " Prag- 
 
 * Mr, Schiller denies me the right to interpret this passage literally 
 in Mind, July, 1909 (p. 426), on the ground that he says a few lines 
 farther on that he can hold all his pragmatic theories "without losing 
 faith in the intellect." Now, if only Mr. Schiller had proved that he 
 could do that instead of simply saying that he did. Our ears are still 
 ringing with the anathemas of pragmatists against metaphysicians, 
 who, to use the term of Renan, are hopelessly trying to do such an 
 absurd thing as "to define the infinite." But I do not think meta- 
 physicians ever uttered such suicidal statements of their position as 
 Mr. Schiller, who calmly says that Pragmatism "vindicates the ra- 
 tionality of Irrationalism, without becoming irrational"; and how 
 proud he is of this jewel is shown by the fact that he quotes it him- 
 self in his criticism in Mind, underlining carefully the last part. 
 Not only did he not appreciate my kindness in not making use of 
 the phrase in my book, but he reproaches me for it. Indeed, I am 
 glad to give him satisfaction in this English edition — surprised, 
 however, at such candor. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 51 
 
 matism is less a philosophy than a method of doing 
 without a philosophy." {Popular Science Monthly y 
 
 p. 354.) 
 
 Undoubtedly it requires courage to speak as 
 Mr. Schiller does, and Mr. Papini leaves us in a 
 meditative mood. For, after all, how shall we rep- 
 resent to ourselves this fashion of putting ourselves 
 above all logic? It is absolutely consistent with 
 pragmatist principles, one cannot too often repeat. 
 But how could it be possible? We know very well 
 that it could n't ; but let the pragmatists themselves 
 speak. 
 
 If any one could have untied, or even cut, this 
 Gordian knot it would have been William James. 
 He would not have imprudently burned his vessels 
 behind him like Papini. He claims to observe the 
 postulates of a philosophy, and the truths of pragma- 
 tism ought not to contradict each other. But listen : 
 "If there be any life that it is really better we 
 should lead, and if there be any idea which, if be- 
 lieved in, would help us to lead that life, then it 
 would be really better for us to believe in that idea, 
 unless indeed belief in it incidentally clashed with 
 other greater vital bene fits J' (Pragmatism, p. 76.) 
 The italics are Professor James's. 
 
 That is the language of a man who is not anxious 
 to violate the principle of contradiction. It only 
 remains for us to find out whether he can reconcile 
 such a sentiment with ideas such as these : "On 
 pragmatic principles we cannot reject any hypothe- 
 sis if consequences useful to life flow from it " 
 
52 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 (Pragmatism, p. 273); or, "Human arbitrariness 
 has driven divine necessity from scientific logic." 
 (Ibid. p. 57.) 
 
 The relations between pragmatism and intellec- 
 tualism are examined in the sixth lecture on prag- 
 matism " The Conception of Truth." Let us follow 
 the authors argument very closely. 
 
 James waives aside the conception of truth that it 
 is a copy of reality, and also the conception that it 
 is what God wants us to believe. These, and all 
 other conceptions of a rationalistic and intellectual- 
 istic character, even if they were intellectually main- 
 tainable, have the common defect of being " indiffer- 
 ent " ; truth so conceived is something " inert," 
 without result or consequence. Pragmatism has 
 other needs or demands which it expresses by asking 
 its usual question : " Grant an idea or belief to be 
 true, what concrete difference will its being true 
 make in any one's actual life?" (Pragmatism, p. 
 200.) In good sooth we might go no farther than 
 this sentence, " grant such or such an idea or belief 
 to be true. ..." Does n't this mean that before 
 an idea can be true pragmatically it ought to be true 
 rationally? and thus every one be forced to recog- 
 nize that the traditional relations between practical 
 and theoretical cannot be overturned? that prag- 
 matism ought to follow intellectualism and not the 
 contrary ? ^ According to this the relations between 
 
 * Professor J. G. Hibben, in the article already mentioned, "The 
 Test of Pragmatism" (in Philosophical Review, July 15, 1908), com- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 53 
 
 the two methods or philosophies might be compared 
 somewhat closely with those existing in a parliament 
 in which the Lower Chamber proposes laws and the 
 Upper Chamber either accepts or refuses to ratify 
 them. But the Upper Chamber could not adopt any 
 law which had not previously been declared practi- 
 cable by the Lower Chamber. Similarly, if a theory 
 is declared correct by intellectualism, pragmatism 
 reserves the right to sanction it or not, but it might 
 not propose any theories of its own. 
 
 Yet as a matter of fact, pragmatism does not rest 
 content with so little ; it claims to dictate, on its own 
 responsibility, that which it is right or expedient that 
 the truth should he. To the question cited above, 
 " Grant an idea or belief to be true, what concrete 
 difference will its being true make in any one's actual 
 life?" it does not simply reply, "That would be 
 good," or " That would be bad," but answers by a 
 definition of the true which implies a totally different 
 question; namely, " A certain idea or a certain be- 
 lief being given (remark that the premises no longer 
 contain anything about the " true " or the " un- 
 true"), what difference would that make in prac- 
 tice and which could we declare to be true?" 
 Ignoring what looks very much like a new feat 
 of prestidigitation, let us ask if this fashion of rele- 
 
 ing to examine the pragmatist claim that truth must fit not only the 
 "concrete situation of facts" but also "do no violence to the funda- 
 mental laws of our logical nature," says: "Verification of this kind, 
 however, concedes in its very statement the consideration of a higher 
 standard to which the simple pragmatic test must conform" (p. 371). 
 
54 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 gating intellectualism to the second place can be 
 realized. Here is James's reply to the question asked 
 by him and reproduced above, and his definition of 
 the true : 
 
 " True ideas are those that we can assimilate, vali- 
 date, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those 
 that we cannot," etc. {Pragmatism, p. 201.) 
 
 Let us look again at these terms. Those that we can 
 assimilate; that is to say, the truth is measured by 
 our standard, not solely in the sense of Protagoras 
 (cf. James, p. 223) and of Kant (that, being per- 
 ceived by us intellectually, it must take the forms 
 that our knowing faculties impose upon it), but that 
 it must in addition be reduced to the form which our 
 needs and desires impose upon it, — in a word, our 
 pragmatic faculties. (Mr. Schiller develops this 
 thesis by referring it directly to Kant, who has estab- 
 lished the first standard and who must be completed 
 by accepting this second standard.) {Humanism, 
 pp. 9, 10.) 
 
 Those that we can validate or turn to account; 
 that is to say : this is true which is useful. " You 
 can say of a truth (which from being indifferent be- 
 comes at a given moment useful) either that it is 
 useful because it is true, or that it is true because it 
 is useful,'^ {Pragmatism, p. 204.) "Our account 
 of truth is an account of truths in the plural, of pro- 
 cesses of leading, realized in rebus, and having only 
 this quality in common, that they pay/' {Ibid. 
 p. 218.) 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 55 
 
 This apprises us of nothing new ; but what is the 
 value of the other terms, corroborate and verify, 
 coming after the foregoing? Either they are a 
 simple repetition of those first ones under a new 
 form (that is to say, our criterion being our power 
 of thinking and our utility, verify would be a repeti- 
 tion of assimilate and corroborate would repeat vali- 
 date) ; or else these two terms introduce surrepti- 
 tiously something new that was not contained in 
 assimilate and validate. In that case, what can this 
 something new be? It can only be intellectualism, 
 that very intellectual criterion that pragmatism 
 would, if not suppress, at least subordinate to its 
 own authority. But then it is easy to see that, 
 whether you place the intellectual postulates after 
 or before the others, is of very little consequence so 
 long as you agree to satisfy them all the same. And 
 in this simple transposition in the order of mention 
 consists, in the last resort, the attempt of Professor 
 James to give pragmatism the precedence over in- 
 tellectualism in the question "What is truth? "^ 
 
 And the continuation of Professor James's lecture 
 shows us that the matter in hand is indeed this intel- 
 lectualist element, and not the mere addition of two 
 synonyms to the preceding verbs. We had well 
 
 * Not only do you not save anything by this plan of precedence, 
 but you run the risk of complicating things most decidedly. Suppose 
 you have completed your pragmatic argument on some point, and 
 that passing next to verification by intellectualism you should find a 
 contradiction which should force you to abandon your theories, you 
 would then have heavy work on hand which you could have spared 
 if you had proceeded according to the traditional order. 
 
S6 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 understood that of two philosophical theories the 
 more useful should be preferred. Yet all of a sud- 
 den Professor James bethinks himself that there are 
 " realities " where notions of " true and false beliefs 
 obtain " independently of every philosophical theory 
 even of pragmatism " and here the beliefs are ab- 
 solute 'or unconditional." (Pragmatism, p. 209.) 
 These are " ideas purely mental," such as 2 -|- 4 = 
 6; and, pragmatically, this gets us into difficulties. 
 Just before, he had assured us that we can say, " It 
 is useful because it is true," or, '' It is true because 
 it is useful." Now, then, this criterion of utility is 
 only true within certain limits ! 
 
 There are cases — the case of a creditor, for ex- 
 ample — where it would be useful to have 2 + 4 
 = 7, or, on the other hand — for the debtor — to 
 have 2 + 4 = 5. So we have to admit that we 
 sometimes come up against '' realities " in which the 
 principles of the expedient and the inexpedient can- 
 not be applied. Worse still, " our ideas must agree 
 with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, 
 be they facts or be they principles, under the penalty 
 of endless inconsistency and frustration." (Prag- 
 matism, p. 211.) Pitiable avowal of the impotence 
 of pragmatism ! for here " to agree " means to 
 agree intellectually. In other words, when pragma- 
 tism is in conflict with intellectualism — and we have 
 just seen that there are such conflicts — far from 
 pragmatism compelling intellectualism to yield, it is 
 the former that lays down its arms. 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 57 
 
 That Professor James himself recognizes and is 
 the first to point out that there are facts that impose 
 limits in pragmatism does not render the facts less 
 embarrassing. At the confessional a sinner who 
 confesses may be pardoned; in philosophy he can- 
 not be. It is not sufficient for the philosopher to rec- 
 ognize the difficulty ; he must remove it. Now it is 
 impossible for James to dream of doing so. While 
 recognizing, then, that pragmatism is obliged to take 
 cognizance of what Kant has well called *' synthetic 
 judgments a priori'' (it matters very little, by the 
 way, whether these judgments are irreducible by 
 analysis or not), James recognizes at least that 
 pragmatism shares with intellectualism the empire 
 of philosophy, — intellectualism not as the repre- 
 sentative of some system, if you please, but intellec- 
 tualism as a method; for we must not allow our- 
 selves to be taken in by this cunning ruse de guerre 
 of the pragmatists by which they would fain make 
 us believe that every time people speak of intellec- 
 tualism they speak of a rigid system. 
 
 This is not all. In addition to the sphere of prag- 
 matic " realities " (in which we judge in accordance 
 with the criterion of the expedient), and that of 
 " realities " furnished by the synthetic a priori judg- 
 ments which are independent of pragmatism. Pro- 
 fessor James is obliged to add a third sphere of 
 " realities," namely, " the whole body of other truths 
 already in our possession. {Pragmatism, p. 212.) 
 And in order that a pragmatic theory be valid, it 
 
S8 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 must not only be expedient, not only not contradict 
 the synthetic a priori judgments, but, further, not be 
 found in contradiction with other theories previously 
 adopted. (This, however, does not hinder our occa- 
 sionally preserving a new theory and rejecting an 
 old one with which it is not in agreement — only 
 there must be no logical incompatibility in the body 
 of accepted theories.) Here we have it, ipsissimis 
 verbis: 
 
 " To ' agree ' in the widest sense with a reality can 
 only mean to be guided either straight up to it or into 
 its surroundings, or to be put into such working touch 
 with it as to handle either it or something connected 
 with it better than if we disagreed.'' {Pragmatism, 
 pp. 212, 213.) 
 
 This intricate and subtle definition (purposely 
 made so, in order that, by the terms *' working 
 touch " and " handle," some few fragments of prag- 
 matic elements might be saved) simply means that 
 a theory in order to be pragmatically true must not 
 be in (intellectual) disagreement with any " reality" 
 whatever, or with any truth in the same group or in 
 any other group. And Professor James himself 
 adds, as an after thought to his definition, " better 
 either intellectually or practically " (!) Yet not- 
 withstanding this he had written a few lines before, 
 " Here it is that pragmatism and intellectualism 
 begin to part company." But it is just the opposite 
 that is true ; it is here they show that they can never 
 part company; there is not the shadow of a differ- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 59 
 
 ence left between them. A pragmatic theory is only 
 acceptable when it agrees with other pragmatic theo- 
 ries, or with the principles of pure reason, or with 
 every logical theory derived from these. So be it, 
 but this is a conception of the true that any intellec- 
 tualist philosopher would adopt, for the precise rea- 
 son that all trace of pragmatism has been removed. 
 
 Five lines farther down Professor James again 
 tries to waive aside intellectualism. " To copy a 
 reality is, indeed, one very important way of agree- 
 ing with it, but it is far from being essential. The 
 essential thing is the process of being guided." But 
 Professor James's intellectualist honesty is stronger 
 than his pragmatism, and he resumes : " Any idea 
 that helps us to deal, whether practically or intellec- 
 tually (note again that "or intellectually'') with 
 either the reality or its belongings, that does n't en- 
 tangle our progress in frustrations, that fits, in fact, 
 and adapts our life to the reality's whole setting, 
 will agree sufficiently to meet the requirement." 
 
 x\nd again three pages farther on : we must have 
 a theory that " works," with no capricious logic ; 
 a theory " must derange common sense and previous 
 belief as little as possible, and it must lead to some 
 sensible terminus or other that can be verified ex- 
 actly. To * work ' means both these things ; and the 
 squeeze is so tight that there is little loose play for 
 any hypothesis. Our theories are wedged and con- 
 trolled as nothing else is." (Pragmatism, pp. 216, 
 217.) 
 
6o ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 Behold, then, pragmatism, by James's own avowal, 
 bound hand and foot and delivered over to the 
 mercies of intellectualism ! 
 
 It is undoubtedly possible for the theories of prag- 
 matism to form a natural and homogeneous abode 
 intellectually, and not come into logical collision 
 with each other at any point. But we should then 
 have to say that one of two things would be true: 
 either (a) we should accept the pragmatist philos- 
 ophy as true independently of the pragmatic method ; 
 that is to say, not because it is pragmatic, but because 
 it satisfies the postulates of intellectualism ; the world 
 would be explained (intellectually) from the teleo- 
 logical point of view, and there would be no need 
 of submitting philosophy to the method extolled by 
 James; or (b) the agreement of pragmatism and 
 intellectualism would have to be regarded as the 
 result of chance. But what an unimaginable accu- 
 mulation of unheard-of fortuities would be neces- 
 sary in order that a philosophy the field of which is 
 all phenomena, past, present, future, scientific, ethi- 
 cal, social, political, etc., etc., and which is con- 
 structed on a certain principle, should coincide down 
 to the minutest details with the postulates of a phi- 
 losophy conceived on a principle wholly different if 
 not incompatible! And then again this imaginary 
 coincidence would have no more value from a prag- 
 matist point of view than if it did not exist, for, as 
 we have seen, it is precisely what the pragmatists are 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 6i 
 
 trying to claim, that the simple fact of being in 
 agreement with the postulates of intellectualism is 
 not a sufficient sanction for a philosophy. The intel- 
 lectualists alone could conscientiously adopt the sys- 
 tem, for they limit themselves to the endeavor to ex- 
 plain the world theoretically ; they believe they would 
 accomplish not a little if they could find a universal 
 principle giving account of all phenomena, even if 
 they could not prove that this principle corresponds 
 accurately to the truth per se. Anyway, such a dem- 
 onstration is beyond the power of human faculties. 
 
 Summarizing now the discussion: The position 
 of the pragmatists is this: they would have liked 
 to discard, and ought to have discarded, intellectual- 
 ism in favor of pragmatism; but that is impossible, 
 for pragmatism would be an unrestricted fancy if 
 not watched over and controlled by intellectualism. 
 No pragmatism without intellectualism! On the 
 other hand, it is easy to see that intellectualism can 
 very well dispense with pragmatism ; and, moreover, 
 it deals with reality as much as its opponent ; ^ not 
 in the pragmatic sense, it is true, but it can only be 
 reproached for that when it is proved that it is illegit- 
 imate to deal with it in any other way than the prag- 
 matic. Professor James says that Spencer would be 
 
 ^ "Now, in order to carry on this 'ancient quarrel' on equal terms, 
 it is necessary at the present time to begin with an emphatic protest 
 against the pragmatist's assumption that he, and he alone speaks in 
 the name of experience." (J. E. Creighton, Experience and Thought. 
 Philosophical Review, XV, No. 5, p. 484.) 
 
62 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 an excellent pragmatist if philosophy only had to do 
 with the past ; but since it deals also with the future, 
 his system is worthless. It is possible that the sys- 
 tem of philosophy thus accused is worthless, but it is 
 absurd to maintain that Spencer does not take into 
 account the future. How could he be said not to 
 take any account of it when he formulates relations 
 of laws between phenomena? He does not take it 
 into account in the spirit of pragmatism ; but that is 
 a very different matter. 
 
 I beg leave to open here a parenthesis : 
 It ought in justice to be stated that the confusion 
 between what I have called scientific pragmatism and 
 ethical pragmatism is not a thing of recent date. It 
 has always more or less vaguely existed in the minds 
 of men. It was particularly strong in the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries, and especially in 
 England was the philosophy of this epoch encum- 
 bered with errors of this kind. One could, however, 
 make good this difference, that in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury the thinking world was not yet wholly freed 
 from the theologico-social spirit of scholasticism, 
 whereas to-day in the twentieth century, after we 
 have pretty well rid ourselves of this in the world of 
 thought, pragmatism wants to plunge us into it 
 anew. 
 
 I shall treat in another chapter of Rousseau as 
 precursor of modem pragmatism. M. Texte, in his 
 book Rousseau et le cosmopolitisme litteraire studies 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 63 
 
 the precursors of Rousseau. I borrow the three 
 following citations from him : 
 
 *' Those who seriously apply themselves (says Locke, 
 in his De Arte Medico) to displaying and arranging 
 abstractions give themselves a good deal of trouble for 
 little result and would be just as well employed al- 
 though they are grown men, in playing with their child- 
 hood's dolls. . . . There are no intellectual require- 
 ments worthy of name except those that lead to some 
 new and useful invention, that teach us to do something 
 better, quicker, and more easily than before. Any 
 other kind of speculation, though curious and refined 
 and seemingly profound, is only a vain and idle phi- 
 losophy, the occupation of idlers." 
 
 Elsewhere he says : 
 
 " Our business in this world is not to know all things, 
 but those which concern the conduct of life." 
 
 Dr. Johnson, in The Rambler, No. 24, writes: 
 
 " When a man employs himself upon remote and un- 
 necessary subjects, and wastes his life upon questions 
 which cannot be resolved, and of which the solution 
 would conduce very little to the advancement of hap- 
 piness ; when he lavishes his hours in calculating the 
 weight of the terraqueous globe, or in adjusting suc- 
 cessive systems of worlds beyond the reach of the 
 telescope; he may be very properly recalled from his 
 excursions by this precept ('Know thyself) and re- 
 minded that there is a nearer being with which it is 
 duty to be more acquainted, and from which his atten- 
 tion has hitherto been withheld by studies to which he 
 has no other motive than vanity or curiosity." 
 
64 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 Similar passages abound in the writers of this 
 epoch. They are contained in germ, in Bacon's 
 aphorism, " Knowledge is power " (to be contrasted 
 with " Knowledge is foresight " of contemporary 
 science). Like the pragmatists of to-day, these 
 thinkers did not care for science as science, and when 
 we admire them for having attained to the imper- 
 sonal and disinterested study of nature, we really 
 praise them for something they cultivated hy acci- 
 dent and not out of deliberate foresight. The ulti- 
 mate aim of scientific speculations was, as the cita- 
 tions just given show, the well-being of humanity in 
 the broad sense of that word. And from this point 
 of view there is not so very much difference between 
 their spirit and that of the middle ages. It consists 
 above all in taking a different view of the destiny of 
 man ; but the end is the same. In the scholastic phi- 
 losophy, happiness in the religious sense is the aim; 
 that is to say, in the sense of the renunciation of 
 earthly life for the life celestial. After the Renais- 
 sance religion took on a utilitarian character in the 
 earthly sense, or at any rate all happiness was not 
 deferred till the future, and suffering was no longer 
 the absolute condition of entering heaven. If there 
 was any need of renunciation it was not at all that 
 enjoyment was bad in itself, but because it was nec- 
 essary to respect the rights of others in our enjoy- 
 ment, as they were under obligation to respect ours. 
 
 Now it is this new conception (new in Christian 
 civilization) of the right to terrestrial happiness 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 65 
 
 which has indirectly brought science into favor in 
 place of the scholastic philosophy. The latter, whose 
 task it was to prove in the last resort the truth of the 
 Christian doctrine of renunciation, is useless, and 
 therefore bad, for it diverts our energies from sci- 
 entific speculations, and these are useful. Indeed, 
 in order to live we must know the conditions of ex- 
 istence in the world, we must study nature. Al- 
 though it be studied for a utilitarian purpose, it must 
 be studied as it is, scientifically, to make of it an in- 
 strument for our pleasures or our comfort. To be 
 willing to be deceived through slothful ignorance is 
 to become bewildered a thousand times. It is just 
 as in business in which honesty is the best policy; 
 the most useful, the best thing to do is to know and 
 follow nature as she is. But, once more, men do 
 not care for science for the sake of science. 
 
 Hence, the terms " useful," " valid," or " good " 
 are employed at that epoch in the two different 
 senses I have pointed out in modern pragmatism, 
 — in the moral, or social sense of the word " prag- 
 matism," and from the more restricted point of 
 view of the development of science. And now, 
 what interests us is that there can be conflict between 
 the two senses, and that science may show itself to 
 be very anti-social as well as social, in its results, 
 owing to the fact that the truth may be hostile to 
 man; for example, certain laws of heredity, which, 
 once known, suggest to certain persons to give up 
 the struggle against the baneful tendencies within 
 
 5 
 
66 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 them. In such cases knowledge (or science) is bad 
 and can only be regarded as useful in the scientific 
 sense. 
 
 So we see that ethics and science could be in con- 
 flict in the eighteenth century just as to-day science 
 and pragmatism can. I shall take up this problem in 
 the next chapter, and only remark here that the 
 mere fact of the existence of the utilitarianism of the 
 eighteenth century or that of the nineteenth century, 
 and of the pragmatism of the twentieth century, in- 
 dependently formulated all three, proves in itself 
 not merely that there may be conflicts, but that they 
 in fact exist. If science and ethics agreed naturally, 
 divergences would not occur, at least in so persistent 
 a way; or, as Hebert remarks, apropos of pragma- 
 tism, " the ends would always seem to justify the 
 means.'' {Le Pragmatismej Paris, 1908, p. 56.) In 
 sooth we ought to congratulate ourselves that the 
 confusion between scientific validity and ethical or 
 social validity has for some time been in exist- 
 ence. Without this confusion of the two, social val- 
 idity would evidently not have looked with favor on 
 scientific validity — that is to say, science — but it 
 would have slain this last or at least obstructed its 
 progress. This danger no longer exists ; science for 
 the sake of science has taken too deep root among us. 
 
 But to return from this digression to our argu- 
 ment. If there were really nothing behind pragma- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 67 
 
 tism it would be astonishing that it could have been 
 accepted by anybody. What is it then ? Trailed up 
 and ousted from all its strongholds (or rather Pro- 
 fessor James himself recognizes them as untenable 
 and abandons them) pragmatism is now taking 
 refuge in its last entrenchment. After the passage 
 cited above, " our theories are wedged and controlled 
 as nothing else is," Professor James continues : " Yet 
 sometimes alternative theoretic formulas are equally 
 compatible with all truths we know and then we 
 choose between them for subjective reasons." 
 
 These words give the key to the enigma. The 
 mountain has brought forth its mouse. When two 
 theories are equally uncertain, intellectually speak- 
 ing, then pragmatism, profiting by the uncertainty, 
 may slip in the " expediency " theory ; or, when 
 there exist departments of thought of which intellec- 
 tualism cannot take possession (such as religion), 
 pragmatism claims the right to install itself there. 
 In short, when that severe guardian, intellectualism, 
 is not at hand to oppose, and only then, pragmatism 
 can give free reign to its " temperament." To con- 
 ceal the meagreness of this final outcome, William 
 James covers it with flowers of rhetoric : " We 
 choose the kind of theory to which we are already 
 partial ; we follow ' elegance ' or ' economy.' Clerk- 
 Maxwell somewhere says it would be * poor scientific 
 taste ' to choose the more complicated of two equally 
 well-evidenced conceptions; and you will all agree 
 with him. Truth in science is what gives us the 
 
68 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 maximum possible sum of satisfactions, taste in- 
 cluded; but considering both with previous truth 
 and with novel fact is always the most imperious 
 claimant." (Pragmatism, p. 217.) 
 
 Nobody will deny that there are still vast hori- 
 zons open to pragmatic speculations thus conceived 
 (leaving out of the account their encroachments) ; 
 but to call this philosophy, when the proper place 
 for it is just where philosophy ends, is not ad- 
 missible. 
 
 James did not at first think of doing so, for rea- 
 sons which I shall not at present attempt to fathom ; 
 he was led into it gradually. Indeed, originally, his 
 pragmatism was not presented as a philosophic 
 method, but simply as a method that might serve as 
 a guide in the practical life, apropos of certain ques- 
 tions that philosophy cannot claim to solve, or which 
 are still pending. As a philosophic method he 
 frankly admitted intellectualism. It will not be a 
 loss of time to compare his method of expressing 
 himself in his famous essay The Will to Believe, and 
 in his recent Pragmatism, the two books having an 
 interval of ten years between them. 
 
 In the 1897 essay we read: 
 
 " The position that I defend is, in brief, this : Our 
 passional nature not only lawfully may hut must decide 
 an option between propositions, whenever it is a gen- 
 uine option that cannot by its nature be decided on 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 69 
 
 intellectual grounds; for to say, under such circum- 
 stances, ^ Do not decide, hut leave the question open* 
 is itself a passional decision, — just like deciding yes 
 or not, — and is attended with the same risk of losing 
 the truth" (p. 11). 
 
 The italics are Professor James's. On page 30 the 
 same subject is resumed. 
 
 " In concreto, the freedom to believe can only cover 
 living options which the intellect of the individual can- 
 not by itself resolve. . . ." We must avoid as much 
 as possible (he says) these passional decisions — "as 
 much so as the facts will allow. Wherever the option 
 between losing truth and gaining it is not momentous, 
 we can throw the chance of gaining truth, and at any 
 rate save ourselves from any chance of believing false- 
 hood, by not making up our minds at all till objective 
 evidence has come" (pp. 19, 20). 
 
 That is to say, in certain questions — those of 
 ethics and of faith for example — if the intellect 
 cannot make a decision, choice becomes necessary, 
 for life does not wait. 
 
 This is perfectly clear; it means that when sci- 
 ence fails us, we need not renounce the will to live 
 on that account ; let us live on our beliefs. Now, no 
 one would object to that. James has not said more 
 than that in Pragmatism. He has said it in a differ- 
 ent way, said it less clearly, and he has claimed 
 much more. He has tried to make a philosophic 
 
70 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 method out of what was a rule of life; and then, 
 conscious of the difficulties of his enterprise, he has 
 tried to dissemble them ; that which was very clear 
 has become very obscure. And this is the reason 
 why the English and American reviews are full of 
 articles by certain authors who, while generally ap- 
 plauding pragmatism, enter upon long-winded dis- 
 cussions to find out just what it means. They are 
 seeking a philosophic method in it, which is not 
 there at all, because, I repeat, pragmatism begins 
 where philosophy ends. 
 
 IV 
 
 It would ill become me to limit myself to these 
 theoretical considerations on pragmatism. To see if 
 my criticisms are well founded let us examine the 
 method in operation. 
 
 It is evident that a method, if it has any value, and 
 if it is logically applied, must finally lead different 
 seekers to the same philosophy. Undoubtedly there 
 are great divergences of opinion in many systems; 
 but then, these divergences can be discussed, for 
 they are only more or less consistent applications of 
 principles which, even though they may be false, are 
 sure, for they are constant and impersonal; thus, 
 one monism is truer, or, let us rather say, more con- 
 sistent, than another monism; one materialism than 
 another materialism. But with pragmatism it is dif- 
 ferent; the application of the principle of the expe- 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 71 
 
 dient is not methodical or impersonal, but, naturally 
 of course, subjective. They tell us and tell us again, 
 that the aim of pragmatism is to deliver philosophy 
 from the coercion of system and to give freer play 
 to what is called " temperament " ; now, of course, 
 the more play you give it, the surer you are of not 
 agreeing with others. It is a fact (and not a chance 
 one; I shall explain why elsewhere) that all pragma- 
 tists are akin by " temperament " ; they all incline 
 in a very marked manner to idealism ; and yet, even 
 under these conditions, disagreements abound. It 
 would be only too easy for me to pick out instances 
 and make use of them. M. Lalande, in his consciea- 
 tious article in the Revue philosophique (February, 
 1906), has pointed out some. By choosing a con- 
 crete example from among them I wish to show, in 
 order to confirm my theoretical refutation, that the 
 pragmatists, if they want to reach a philosophical 
 entente, are obliged not only to have recourse to a 
 non-pragmatic method, but that this method is that 
 of the very intellectualism against which they are 
 undertaking to wage war. 
 
 Pragmatism has been enthusiastically adopted by 
 Protestant theologians. By a method of procedure 
 dear to the disciples of William James, Mr. Irwin- 
 King supposes two cases opposed, the one to the 
 other; neither metaphysics nor intellectualism being 
 capable, they say, of deciding between them, the op- 
 portunist method must be called in. "Let us suppose 
 two contradictory propositions : * It is proper that the 
 
72 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 wicked should be punished in the other world* — 
 ' It is repugnant to our feelings that the wicked 
 shoidd receive punishment hereafter' Furthermore, 
 suppose it to be impossible to prove one of these 
 propositions in such a way as to render the other 
 untenable ; let us then permit the metaphysicians to 
 discuss it together, and let us come to the results. 
 In turn we shall assume the first proposition to be 
 true and then the second. It is evident that the 
 conduct of life of people would be different, given 
 universal belief in the first proposition, from what 
 it would be if everybody confessed to a feeling of 
 repugnance toward punishment in the life beyond. 
 It is also clear that the conduct of those who believed 
 in such a punishment would be much more exem- 
 plary than that of people who did not believe in it 
 at all. From ivhich it follozvs that the first proposi- 
 tion, being good in its effects, is true.'' (Cited by 
 Lalande, Revue philosophique, p. 141.) On the 
 other hand. Professor James, in discussing the prob- 
 lem of free will, and concluding for pragmatic 
 reasons in favor of freedom, pronounces, most em- 
 phatically, against this idea of a punitive God : 
 
 " God alone can know our merits if we have any. 
 The real ground for supposing free-will is indeed prag- 
 matic, but it has nothing to do with this contemptible 
 right to punish which has made such a noise in past 
 discussions of the subject." {Pragmatism, p. 118.) 
 
 Now we must admit either that the differences of 
 the two theories are a priori irreducible, or else that 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 73 
 
 one is preferable to the other. In the first case the 
 pragmatists themselves will agree that their philos- 
 ophy is rather adapted to the sowing of discord than 
 the creation of harmony among thinkers. In the 
 second case, which of the theories is preferable to 
 the other and how determine it? Have Mr. King 
 and Mr. James just different " temperaments," or 
 can we explain their disagreement otherwise than 
 by this word ? 
 
 I note this, in the first place, that Mr. King — a 
 theologian and perhaps pastor — takes into consider- 
 ation the moral needs of the masses. With the people 
 the old ethics of fear is always the most effective; 
 let us not suppress it. Professor James, for his part, 
 moving, as he does in a circle of cultivated persons, 
 superior to the masses morally as well as intellectu- 
 ally, is much less inclined to look at humanity in its 
 vulgar or degraded aspect; he would be glad to 
 hold fast by belief in the natural goodness of hu- 
 manity; men sin only through ignorance; a puni- 
 tive God would be useless in the case of those so 
 situated.^ Thus each of these thinkers, starting from 
 unlike experiences, arrives by unconscious reasoning 
 at his theory. 
 
 From the point of view of the pragmatist doctrine, 
 
 * In his Pluralistic Universe (1909) William James writes, p. 29: 
 "The theological machinery that spoke so livingly to our ancestors, 
 with ... its judicial morality and eschatology, its relish for rewards 
 and punishments, its treatment of God as an external contriver and 
 an intelligent moral governor sounds as odd to most of us as if it 
 were some outlandish savage religion." 
 
74 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 the two series of observations and the two courses 
 of reasoning that follow them are absolutely and 
 equally correct. There are people for whom a retrib- 
 utive God w^ould be " expedient," others for whom 
 he would not be. Strictly speaking, then, a prag- 
 matist should reject neither one God nor the other, 
 since both are " expedient," or " opportune." But 
 this would be too simple, and would turn out to be 
 compromising. Moreover, the problem which, it was 
 claimed, was accurately solved, is not solved at all. 
 We must go on then. To arrive at a solution the 
 next query would be necessary : *' Which opinion 
 shall we choose ? Shall we choose the God who cor- 
 responds to the needs of the majority or the one cor- 
 responding to the needs of the superior class? " It 
 is not at all evident that pragmatism can elucidate 
 this question any better than the former. To sacri- 
 fice the masses who can't help their inferiority is 
 unjust ; to sacrifice the elite is stupid. 
 
 Whichever way you look at it, pragmatism does 
 not reach the goal. 
 
 Intellectualism, claim, would serve the purpose 
 better. Ceasing to ask, *' What is most expedient 
 for man to believe? " (a question that leads to con- 
 tradictory answers) it would ask, " Which God 
 would be superior, the punitive God or the non- 
 punitive God?" This leads us into the domain of 
 metaphysical speculation, which pragmatism would 
 like to avoid ; but the man who is asking a reply to 
 the problem as stated by the pragmatists is driven to 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 75 
 
 this kind of speculation perforce, through the bank- 
 ruptcy of pragmatism. And, in fact, he will find in 
 metaphysics a sure criterion to decide between the 
 theory of James and that of King, as to which is the 
 superior. Let us examine the matter then, — sum- 
 ming up, however, solely the ideas of the past. The- 
 ology passed on from a God of vengeance to a God 
 of love. What was its reason? Not the pragmatic 
 reason, since religion is for the masses as well as 
 for superior souls, and since even yet the church and 
 certain pragmatists admit that the punitive God is 
 more useful than the other. The reason is that to 
 the theologian or to the philosopher, reflecting inde- 
 pendently of all pragmatic consideration, it appeared 
 that the punitive God was a God mtellectually infe- 
 rior. In fact, just in proportion as philosophy 
 turned away more from the study of the macrocosm 
 to that of the microcosm, the more it realized how 
 every act of a man is the inevitable result of circum- 
 stances plus his character. To render responsible 
 and to punish for an act that cannot be helped is 
 foolish. On the contrary, the more one comprehends 
 a person the more one becomes charitable in one's 
 judgments, the more one becomes just. To condemn 
 an irresponsible man is not moral because it is intel- 
 lectually false, because it is a logical mistake. A 
 retributive God would be an intellectual monster. 
 The fear of divine punishment may undoubtedly be 
 a motive of action; but yet it is a motive behind 
 which may or may not be found a reality. If this 
 
76 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 reality actually exists, it would point to a God pun- 
 ishing men for acts which they could not help com- 
 mitting. 
 
 The man who has made such reflections as these 
 cannot or will not any longer believe in a God of 
 vengeance; or if, for reasons of another kind, he 
 nevertheless believes in him, he will refuse to regard 
 him as a superior being, he will refuse him his ado- 
 ration. According to his " temperament " he will 
 be abject or haughty toward him. 
 
 We have thus found a criterion, which pragma- 
 tism did not furnish, for estimating the relative 
 value of the respective opinions of King and James. 
 It is an intellectualist criterion. From which it 
 results that the pragmatism of a man is worth just 
 as much as his intellect. 
 
 V 
 
 Such assistance as this — forced and really anti- 
 pragmatic, — intellectualism cannot bestow except 
 in the case of an isolated problem. When we con- 
 sider pragmatism as a philosophical whole then in- 
 tellectualism can intervene only to bring out in full 
 light a failure. What becomes of the application of 
 the pragmatic method when it is delivered over to 
 its own proper resources ? This is the next and last 
 question. 
 
 Pragmatists make the needs of man their starting 
 point; but they don't give themselves the trouble 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 77 
 
 even to set these needs in order ; they just take them 
 as they come, never troubhng themselves about their 
 relative value or their relations with each other. 
 They have sometimes vague ideas about the beauti- 
 ful, the good, and universal progress ; but these are 
 mere zvords; squeeze them a little and nothing re- 
 mains. It is in this that pragmatism is inferior even 
 to eclecticism. The latter, starting from psychologi- 
 cal data, at least made the attempt to constitute a 
 system of needs or of faculties — idealistic, sensa- 
 tional, sceptic, and mystic — the ensemble of which 
 made the human being one. This unity could be 
 contested; but there was at least something to dis- 
 cuss about. But you can't get a grip on pragmatism ; 
 when you try to seize it, it slips through your fingers. 
 Under pretext of doing the generous thing by indi- 
 vidualism, by life, and inspired by a suspicious dread 
 of everything that savors of system and order, they 
 cleave fast to chaos; the lack of co-ordination is 
 raised to the height of a principle.^ When there is 
 
 ^ Read this passage by William James (p. 148 of his Pragmatism)'. 
 "The world is One, therefore, just so far as we experience it to be 
 concatenated, one by as many definite conjunctions as appear. But 
 then also not one by just as many definite Jwjunctions as we find. 
 The oneness and the manyness of it thus obtain in respects which 
 can be separately named. It is neither a universal pure and simple 
 nor a multiverse pure and simple. And its various manners of being 
 one suggest, for their accurate ascertainment, so many distinct pro- 
 grams of scientific work. Thus the pragmatic question, 'What is 
 the oneness known as? What practical difference will it make?' 
 saves us all from feverish excitement over it as a principle of sub- 
 limity and carries us forward into the stream of experience with a 
 cool head." What's the use of talking any more about philosophy, 
 seeking relations between phenomena, between ideas, between sciences ? 
 
78 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 no unity at the starting point, how should there be 
 such anywhere? With this "method" every want 
 that your " temperament " invites you to satisfy be- 
 comes the point of departure and the nucleus of a 
 little system by itself, and it would be very surpris- 
 ing if all these little systems built up at random out 
 of all the experiences and inspirations of the famous 
 " temperament " should go, of themselves and judi- 
 ciously, fit themselves together to form a grand phil- 
 osophic whole (that is a co-ordinated whole). At 
 the beck of that enchanter's wand shall ideas mutu- 
 ally contradictory, when in different historical sys- 
 tems, cease to contradict each other when they are 
 introduced pell-mell into pragmatism ? That is what 
 we should like to know. Every one understands that 
 in adopting any portion of a theory we implicitly 
 adopt the premises on which it is based. In order 
 to get the constituent parts of pragmatism to hold 
 together requires, under these conditions, prodigies 
 of skill, subtlety, mental acrobatism. Intellectualism, 
 the simple reason, no longer suffices. After every 
 theory that you have established you have to refo- 
 cus your instrument or your method upon the next 
 problem you tackle. Professor James himself shall 
 furnish us luminous examples of this " method." 
 Let us pass rapidly in review three of his theories.^ 
 
 If we see a relation, very well; if we don't see it, it is very well again; 
 in fact it 's better, for it saves us a little of that thought which weighs 
 so heavy on M. Papini's mind. (Article cited, p. 356.) 
 
 * I know that my readers will understand that if, by preference, I 
 make William James my antagonist it is not thereby to facilitate my task 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 79 
 
 In the third lecture on " Pragmatism " James 
 adopts Berkeley's method of treating the problem 
 of substance. Per se it makes no difference whether 
 substance or matter exists or not; all that is neces- 
 sary is the sensation of substance. God can impart 
 to us this sensation without matter really existing at 
 all. Provided only all takes place as if it did exist, 
 what matters it to us to know anything more on the 
 subject? It is a useless problem. Away with it! 
 Nevertheless, some philosopher with a Cartesian 
 temperament might appear and say, " Pardon me, 
 this problem does concern me, for certain conse- 
 quences depend on the idea that I form to myself 
 of God. This theory of Berkeley embarrasses me 
 very much; for, in fine, either God has created a 
 substance which is useless (and it is quite unworthy 
 of him to create useless things), or else he deceives 
 me in making me think it is matter; and even 
 though it should be a thing of little importance for 
 my material existence w^hether matter exists or not, 
 the whole affair troubles me in my moral life. I do 
 not relish a God who imposes on me, and I wish he 
 were vindicated from the accusations contained in 
 the terms of this dilemma." To this Professor James 
 will reply: Leave alone your anthropomorphic no- 
 tions of God ; the idea of God is pragmatically useful, 
 
 but because he is the ablest representative of pragmatism. In spite 
 of the modesty with which he always conceals himself behind others 
 it is certain that, without James, pragmatism would not exist; and 
 if he had only had as champions such dilettantes as Papini and cer- 
 tain others, this whole movement would have been still-born. 
 
8o ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 and it must be admitted without regard to certain 
 ''residual difficulties" outside of the pragmatic 
 domain properly so called. (Pragmatism, p. 299.) 
 
 The same problem appears apropos of the moral 
 consciousness. William James recalls Locke, who 
 shows that we know nothing of the moral conscious- 
 ness except its effects, nothing of its real existence. 
 But belief in its real existence is useful to the prog- 
 ress of humanity; let us therefore believe in it, 
 and not embarrass ourselves with metaphysics and 
 anthropomorphisms. 
 
 In the same (the third) lecture William James 
 proposes " another problem." The topic on the tapis 
 now is to decide between the two hypotheses about 
 the creation of the world, — the materialistic and the 
 idealistic. In a few luminous pages James shows 
 that, from the rationalistic point of view (premising 
 that the result will be the same in either case, and 
 assuming besides that the two theories render 
 account of the facts equally well), it matters very 
 little whether the world be a material or a divine 
 product. But, he adds, it matters a good deal prac- 
 tically. " Theism and materialism, so indifferent 
 when taken retrospectively, point, when we take 
 them prospectively, to wholly different outlooks of 
 experience." (Ibid. p. 103.) Which is it better for 
 us to accept? Pragmatism answers: "Theism." 
 
 " The notion of God, however inferior it may be in 
 clearness to those mathematical notions so current in 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 8i 
 
 mechanical philosophy, has at least this practical supe- 
 riority over them, that it guarantees an ideal order that 
 shall be permanently preserved." (Ibid. p. io6.) 
 
 Very v^ell. But where now are the eloquent dis- 
 courses of the pragmatists : " No more metaphysics, 
 no more anthropomorphism " ? What is Mr. James 
 doing here if not that which he has just condemned? 
 Doubtless many will not perceive it, for when we 
 speak of God in this day we mean naturally the 
 Christian God, whom we naturally conceive as all 
 powerful, all wise, and all good. But this power, 
 this wisdom, and this goodness are far from being 
 contained a priori in the idea of spiritual deity in 
 opposition to matter. Before God acquires prag- 
 matic value he must have certain " attributes." ^ 
 Now the history of religions swarms with examples 
 of gods inferior in power to other gods, who, them- 
 selves subordinate to fate, are intellectually brutes 
 and morally detestable. The God postulated by 
 William James's pragmatism is anthropomorphic 
 like the others, except that the man who conceived 
 it is superior (I considered this point a moment 
 ago), and consequently he conceives a superior God. 
 
 So, then, anthropomorphism and metaphysics are 
 out of place in such and such a discussion; beware 
 of having recourse to them. But they are indis- 
 pensable in this other; do not deprive yourself of 
 
 ^ An observation analogous to that expressed in the text by the 
 writer inspired the critiques of Hoeffding and of Boutroux upon the 
 conception of religion that appears in William James's writings. 
 
 6 
 
 ;45Ht 
 
82 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 their help. Really now, is not this an admirable 
 method? Long live pragmatism! 
 
 But wait; here is a third theory proposed by 
 James. God must be conceived as having benevo- 
 lent intentions toward man and " guaranteeing an 
 ideal order that shall be permanently preserved " ; 
 without that, he would be useless and not true. Yet 
 the spectacle of nature and of society makes us 
 ponder, and it is one of the claims of the pragmatists 
 that they take facts more fully into consideration 
 than did former philosophers; now some believed 
 they had given a true account of the facts here to 
 be taken into consideration by declaring that the 
 world does not reveal a good God (any more than 
 it does a bad God). But James and the pragmatists, 
 considering the idea of God as expedient, cannot 
 abandon it. Here then arises a conflict between 
 facts and expediency, and neither of the two ele- 
 ments can be sacrificed. What are we going to do 
 about it ? — It is a very simple thing : merely re- 
 adjust the focus of your philosophical apparatus. 
 Facing out a poor play with a bold and cheerful 
 face, the pragmatists will hold forth very much as 
 follows : 
 
 God is good, and, undoubtedly, in this there lies 
 an anthropomorphic notion indispensable to us. But 
 one must not be too anthropomorphic; why should 
 God be wholly good? After all, a God who would 
 make everybody happy — let us leave such a dream 
 to the Hindoos, or other metaphysicians of their 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 83 
 
 stamp, who are afraid of life.^ As for us, on the 
 other hand, we have no objection to a God who lets 
 men flounder about a Httle in a dangerous world 
 and gives them the opportunity of vanquishing ac- 
 cumulated obstacles. (See Pragmatism, pp. 295- 
 297.) It is true that the innocent suffer and that 
 the unworthy often triumph. It is true that, as in 
 a battle, the bullets hit or miss as chance directs; 
 but never mind the carnage, the disasters, the strange 
 madness of men, since some have the joy of merited 
 triumph and thus human " dignity " is safeguarded. 
 " Meliorism," this is our doctrine, as opposed to an 
 optimism which the facts contradict. In brief, we 
 have no use for a God who could have conceived and 
 created a world in which justice and dignity should 
 both be perfectly satisfied; and even if you should 
 chance not to be convinced by our reasoning, yet we, 
 for our part, love our pragmatic God better as he is. 
 This strangely recalls the history of a certain fox, 
 who, after having lost his tail, gave an elegant ad- 
 dress to his fellow foxes on the ridiculousness of 
 continuing to carry about a thing so evidently useless 
 as the appendage of which an annoying accident had 
 
 * "The Hindoo and the Buddhist, for this is essentially their atti- 
 tude, are simply afraid, afraid of more experience, afraid of life. And 
 to men of this complexion, religious monism comes with its consoling 
 words: 'All is needed and essential — even you with your sick soul 
 and heart. All are one with God, and with God all is well. . . .' 
 There can be no doubt that when men are reduced to their last sick 
 extremity absolution is the only saving scheme. Pluralistic monism 
 (which James opposes to monism, cf. Pragmatism, p. i6o) simply 
 makes their teeth chatter, it refrigerates the very heart in their 
 breast." {Ibid. pp. 292, 293,) 
 
84 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 deprived him. However, never mind that. What 
 I wish to insist on is the arbitrariness of what is 
 called the pragmatic '' method." Let us rapidly re- 
 capitulate. We have just seen that the same phi- 
 losophy at one time condemned metaphysics and 
 anthropomorphism (the problem of substance and 
 of conscience) ; and at another itself made use of 
 metaphysical speculation outright (the problem of 
 spiritualism and materialism) ; then, when certain 
 logical consequences of its metaphysical premises 
 became troublesome (for they clashed with *' reali- 
 ties") it quickly admitted the propriety of dosing 
 its metaphysics according to the needs of the case 
 (the problem of evil and suffering in the world). 
 
 Some one may here exclaim again : " But prag- 
 matism has always denied that it is a system; its 
 adherents have carefully avoided this term and have 
 replaced it by ' philosophic movement,' ^ attitude,' 
 ' genetic method,' or what not." Precisely ; these 
 are the measures they take to extricate themselves 
 from embarrassment. The device is inspired either 
 by shrewd cunning or by consciousness of the weak- 
 ness of their position, and cannot be tolerated in a 
 serious discussion. " A door must be either open or 
 closed," and a philosophy must either be a systematic 
 philosophy or not be at all. Call pragmatism by 
 whatever name you please, if the thing itself does 
 not stand for ideas having some relation to each 
 other, then why are they grouped together? Is it 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 85 
 
 so, that we ask method of a banker, a grocer, a 
 laundress, and do not dare to ask it of a philosopher? 
 One does not like to put up with this kind of jesting. 
 What the pragmatists would really like is that people 
 should benevolently consider their philosophy as a 
 system but not regard them, the pragmatists, as 
 bound to fulfil the conditions requisite in the case. 
 The criticism of pragmatism made on every hand, 
 that it is an exaggerated individualism, authorizing 
 all kinds of fantastic vagaries, is perfectly justified.^ 
 By warrant of w^hat authority, or in the name of 
 what, shall we limit the claims of any individual 
 desire or need whatever? Professor James himself 
 insists strongly on the rights of " temperament " : 
 
 " Pragmatism is willing to take anything, to follow 
 either logic or the senses, and to count the humblest 
 and most personal experiences. She will count mysti- 
 cal experiences if they have practical consequences. 
 
 ^ What ought to be said regarding that phase of the discussion has 
 been well expressed and concisely in the excellent article of Professor 
 J. E. Creighton, " The Nature and Criterion of Truth " {Philosophi- 
 cal Review, XVII, No. 6): "As a protest against the attitude of the 
 free lance who asserts his right to make his own standpoint and 
 method, I am insisting that no such individual or arbitrary procedure 
 offers any hope, or has any genuine title to the name of philosophy " 
 (p. 596). And again: "The view, then, which I am endeavoring to 
 state, and which I think has been established by the historical develop- 
 ment of philosophical conceptions, maintains that the relation between 
 the mind and reality is essentially inner and organic. Experience 
 throughout all its modes is the expression of this unity in difference." 
 The function of thought is "to determine concretely and still in uni- 
 versal terms the real world'' (p. 600). (Italics are mine.) See also 
 " Experience and Thought " by the same author {Philosophical 
 Review^ XV, No. 5), especially pp. 488 and 489. 
 
86 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 She will take a God who lives in the very dirt of pri- 
 vate fact if that should seem a likely place to find him." 
 {Pragmatism^ p. 80; cf. also pp. 71, y2, 153, etc.) 
 
 Why, then, do they speak of " impudent slander," 
 and vehemently protest when others do no more 
 than accept their own statements? (Ibid. p. 233.) 
 
 There is one misunderstanding, however, that 
 must be avoided ; it is a mistake to think that prag- 
 matism favors more the gratification of our low 
 desires than it does our superior ones. Since it is 
 said that pragmatism justifies everything without 
 discrimination, many persons have taken pleasure in 
 believing that it particularly favors the gross appe- 
 tites. This is evidently unjust. William James de- 
 votes all of his final lecture to the refutation of cer- 
 tain bewildered minds, and to showing that, as for 
 him, it has led him to religion. Of course no one 
 believes that pragmatism could ever direct William 
 James to any but lofty and generous aims; more- 
 over, those who are fond of practising the principles 
 of a low and vile philosophy are not often those who 
 enjoy writing discussions about their doctrines. But 
 it is none the less true, and may be used as a weapon 
 against pragmatism, that you cannot find in it any 
 principle that forbids a priori a mean inferior tem- 
 perament from cultivating with good show of right 
 an inferior pragmatism and exalting its merits. 
 Pragmatism is a little in the same predicament, in 
 this respect, as epicureanism, which as lived and 
 
THE PRINCIPLES OF PRAGMATISM 87 
 
 practised by an Epicurus, or a Lucretius, has nothing 
 offensive about it; or as utilitarianism, which the 
 pen of John Stuart Mill renders noble and refined. 
 Yet of both these systems others may make a differ- 
 ent use. We are led once more to the opinion ex- 
 pressed a few pages previously: a pragmatism is 
 worth just what the man who formulated it is worth. 
 Now a philosophy ought to be judged from an imper- 
 sonal point of view. But of all philosophies prag- 
 matism fulfils this condition with least satisfaction. 
 Indeed, epicureanism with its principle of "the great- 
 est amount of pleasure possible," still afforded mat- 
 ter for discussion ; and in utilitarianism you have the 
 principle " the greatest happiness possible for the 
 greatest number," which still more limited the im- 
 agination. Neither the one system nor the other was 
 characterized by precision ; but there was an attempt 
 at it; its necessity was recognized. Pragmatism 
 has none of these formulas ; " the expedient," " the 
 opportune," that is all. As I have already observed, 
 Mr. James confesses, in his eighth lecture — on the 
 whole the only one in which he stops constructing 
 the theory of pragmatism in order to offer us prag- 
 matic theories — that he speaks only for himself. 
 
 Of all the philosophies up to this time proposed 
 to men, pragmatism is the least philosophic. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE DEWEY CASE ^ 
 
 Among the representatives of pragmatism in 
 America, there is one whose position is not very 
 clearly defined. Pragmatists have good reasons to 
 claim him as being one of them, while he himself 
 has good reason for keeping somewhat on the de- 
 fensive. He has reiterated his hesitations once more 
 in his criticism of William James's book. {The 
 Journal of Philosophy, February 13, 1908. See es- 
 pecially p. 96.) The "Dewey case" is interesting 
 and characteristic. It is worth while to devote one 
 chapter to a close examination of it. 
 
 Professor Dewey is not exactly obscure, but from 
 a French point of view, at least, he is certainly neither 
 simple nor easy. I have wondered, at times, whether 
 the endless windings of his philosophical thought 
 have not contributed much to gain for him the envi- 
 able reputation of being " the most scientific " rep- 
 
 ^ I am aware that Professor Dewey and his disciples claim that 
 he was misunderstood in this chapter. As, however, they have so 
 far refused to prove it, I am not able to make any changes. What- 
 ever few precise accusations they have consented to formulate, I have 
 answered in The Journal of Philosophy in reply to Mr. Moore's Dis- 
 cussion of May 27, 1909. Moreover, in Appendix A of this volume, 
 I have added a few words regarding the "Argument of Silence." 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 89 
 
 resentative of pragmatism. In studying more closely 
 his theories, one understands that Professor Dewey 
 hesitates — whether consciously or unconsciously I 
 would not venture to say — between two ways of 
 thinking which fundamentally contradict each other, 
 and that he devotes a great part of his strength to 
 conciliate them ; thus the real meaning of his " tours, 
 detours, et retours " becomes apparent. 
 
 There is very distinctly at the bottom of his spec- 
 ulations a preoccupation similar to that which one 
 finds in his brothers in pragmatism; namely, to 
 bring nearer ethics and scientific truths on the do- 
 main of logic. The title of his long and famous 
 essay. Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment 
 of Morality (Chicago, 1903), is a complete pro- 
 gram by itself. Only, instead of demonstrating that 
 moral judgments have the same characteristics as the 
 scientific judgments (as one would have expected, 
 and as every^ one else would have done, it seems, 
 who wanted to show that moral judgments can 
 really be '' scientifically treated "), Professor Dewey 
 chooses to do just the reverse; the first part of his 
 essay is destined to show that scientific judgments 
 have the characteristics of the moral judgments. 
 
 His conception of the " moral judgment " — 
 which might, perhaps, sound somewhat old- 
 fashioned to some of us — is the one he finds pre- 
 vailing all around him in the Anglo-Saxon world, 
 namely : 
 
 I. Moral judgments are individual, i. e., aim at 
 
90 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 solving particular cases, and since each case is indi- 
 vidual, the value of those judgments is absolute, not 
 relative; as opposed to scientific judgments, which 
 are usually considered as being universal, i. e., good 
 to solve not only individual cases, but any other simi- 
 lar cases : in science there are universal cases, people 
 think, not in ethics. Now, says Professor Dewey 
 (anxious, I repeat it, not to reduce moral judgments 
 to scientific judgments, but, on the contrary, scien- 
 tific judgments to moral judgments), this is erro- 
 neous. A scientist is looking for general laws, it is 
 true; but at the same time he wants to solve indi- 
 vidual cases or problems ; laws are not science, but 
 only a means to get science; and if a law does not 
 solve a specific problem, the scientist will change the 
 law and not the problem. Thus science, like ethics, 
 aims at the individual case. 
 
 2. As applied to practical life, moral judgments 
 imply the intervention of the personality of the one 
 who judges, as one factor in the judgment. And 
 here again, scientific judgments, if one only studies 
 them closely enough, are like moral judgments; 
 they imply a personal intervention, or action, on the 
 part of the one who judges, (a) in the classification 
 of possible predicates, (b) in the selection of the 
 individual cases to be studied to solve a problem, 
 (c) in the choice of the means for verifying an 
 hypothesis, either by experience or by demonstration. 
 In those three operations the personality of the 
 judger, or, as Dewey says, his " character," modifies 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 91 
 
 the judgment, guides, suggests. Thus: " If the use 
 of scientific resources, of technique of observation 
 and experiment, of systems of classification, etc., in 
 directing the act of judging (arid thereby fixing the 
 content of the judgment), depends upon the interest 
 and disposition of the judger, we have only to make 
 such dependence explicit, and the so-called scientific 
 judgment appears definitely as a moral judgment '' 
 
 (p. 14).^ 
 
 All this can be expressed in the following formula : 
 The so-called scientific judgments, or purely objec- 
 tive judgments, being an abstraction without real 
 existence, it is not possible to speak of scientific judg- 
 ments which have not at the same time the charac- 
 ters of the moral judgments. Or, still more briefly : 
 Scientific judgments exist only as moral judgments. 
 And the conclusion would be : Since scientific judg- 
 ments have the fundamental characters of moral 
 judgments — aim at individual cases and imply the 
 intervention of personality — moral judgments are 
 as good, as scientific, as are scientific judgments. 
 
 So far the spirit is altogether the same as the one 
 prevailing in Messrs. James and Schiller : man can- 
 not not be subjective in his judgments and opinions. 
 Thus, if his moral judgments are subjective, they 
 
 ^ Except when otherwise stated, I quote from the essay on Logical 
 Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality. I add that the 
 complete and somewhat subtle demonstration which has just been 
 summarized, in order to render clearer the following pages, will be 
 found on p. 9 ff. and p. 26. 
 
92 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 are worth as much as his scientific judgments (which 
 latter are as a matter of course scientific). Only 
 the way of expressing things is more scholastic with 
 Professor Dewey. 
 
 But once this point has been reached, the ground 
 becomes slippery ; for there is only a short distance 
 to go before one feels like saying, Since the sub- 
 jective element really creates our judgments (scien- 
 tific or moral), since it is the unavoidable condition 
 of judgment, it is therefore indispensable, and it is 
 therefore the really important element. And then, 
 one takes still another step : but then the moral 
 judgment, in which the subjective element is more 
 marked, as a matter of fact, than in the scientific 
 judgment, ought therefore, in case of conflict or 
 hesitation, to be considered superior to the scientific 
 judgment. There is the explanation of Mr. Schil- 
 ler's paradox, that in case one has absolutely to 
 choose between irrationalism and intellectualism, the 
 first shall have the preference with the pragmatist. 
 {Humanism, p. 5.) Those arguments are obviously 
 false.^ Scientific judgments are, perhaps, all sub- 
 jective, but it does not follow that they will be better 
 for it. To maintain that subjectivism being una- 
 voidable is indispensable, and thus, that the more 
 there will be of it, the better for our judgments, 
 holds still less. But all this is '' indispensable " for 
 pragmatism, which proposes to confer upon man the 
 right to choose or to give out what truth shall be 
 
 * This is discussed in detail in the first chapter of this volume. 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 93 
 
 according to what is opportune, instead of simply 
 ascertaining it. 
 
 To come back now to Professor Dewey : as far as 
 I have summarized his paper he has not decided yet 
 for pragmatism ; he has only reduced scientific judg- 
 ments to moral judgments, thus the logic of science 
 to the logic of ethics. But will he stay there? It 
 seems that he ought to; for, to reduce the logic of 
 science to the logic of ethics, or the logic of ethics 
 to the logic of science, is it not practically the same? 
 Is not, in both cases, the logic of ethics incorporated 
 into the logic of science? It seems that the only 
 thing that remains to do, for a logician in the strict 
 sense of the word, would be to show that this sub- 
 jectivism, pointed out by Mr. Dewey in scientific and 
 moral judgments, does not impair their value, be- 
 cause (one must be well aware of the fact) scientific 
 and moral judgments can be equally bad, as well 
 as equally good. 
 
 But Professor Dewey does not care about that. 
 Consciously or unconsciously, he ignores this big 
 question. He has something else in view. Let it 
 be recalled once more that the title of his essay is 
 Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of 
 Morality. From the wording of this title we must 
 infer that in his mind there exist special logical 
 conditions for ethics (or "morality" — I confess 
 that the reason for the selection of this word is not 
 clear to me), for nobody would dream of writing 
 about special logical conditions for physics or chem- 
 
94 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 istry. There are, of course, in each domain of sci- 
 ence, special conditions for scientific researches, but 
 no special " logical " conditions. Professor Dewey, 
 therefore — in view of a purpose which he does 
 not render clear — does not wish to affirm logical 
 identity between scientific, and moral judgments, but 
 only equivalence in value. In fact, he is going to 
 follow in the steps of pragmatists like Messrs. 
 James and Schiller ; after having made great efforts 
 to bring nearer together science and ethics (or mo- 
 rality), he is going to devote his efforts now to draw- 
 ing a sharp distinction between them. Only, he is 
 more clever, or more cautious, than, for example, 
 Mr. Schiller; he is not going to risk and claim a 
 superiority of moral judgments over scientific judg- 
 ments, for this drives one to a corner, namely, that 
 the irrational — or a-rational — is superior to the 
 rational; moreover, the argument of Mr. Schiller 
 is altogether too easily seen through. No, when 
 Professor Dewxy crosses the Rubicon in his turn he 
 will cross it elsewhere; taking it for granted that 
 he has proved the equivalence, he will claim further 
 nothing more but the independence of moral judg- 
 ments with regard to scientific judgments. 
 
 This cleverness, however, will not go a very long 
 way. Thanks to a bold trip to logic, Mr. Schiller 
 had gotten rid of the latter and run away; he was 
 now free. But Professor Dewey, who conscientiously 
 refuses to part company with logic — a praiseworthy 
 attempt, after all — will soon find out that logic is 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 95 
 
 stronger than he is, and that the dangerous partner 
 whom he has chosen is simply going to prevent him 
 from ever reaching his goal, a morality which is 
 logically independent from science. He wdll finally 
 do exactly the reverse of what he intended, namely, 
 he will reduce the logic of ethics to the logic of 
 science. 
 
 This is the way he establishes a difference be- 
 tw^een the two logics : While the intrusion of the 
 personal element (or " character") is without prac- 
 tical results in the scientific judgments, in the moral 
 judgments, on the contrary, this personal element 
 " qualitatively colors the meaning of the situation " ; 
 it has an actual bearing on conduct ; a moral judg- 
 ment is almost an act. Thus, thinks Dewey, since, 
 owing to circumstances, the personal element = 
 zero in the scientific judgments, it is useless, " logi- 
 cally " speaking, to take it into account, while it is 
 impossible to ignore it in moral judgments when we 
 know it to be a fact that it does play an important 
 part : " Character as a practical condition becomes 
 logical when its influence is preferential in effect — 
 when instead of being a uniform and impartial con- 
 dition of any judgment it is, if left to itself (or 
 unstated), a determinant of this content-value of 
 judgment rather than that " (p. 161). 
 
 Is not all this rather extraordinary? If subjec- 
 tivism (or "character") = zero, logically, in the 
 scientific judgments, what is the meaning of those 
 long pages and elaborate arguments of the first half 
 
96 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 of the essay in order to prove that subjectivism is 
 there and acts in the same manner as in the moral 
 judgments? 
 
 One of two things must be true: Either Mr. 
 Dewey means to say that in the moral judgments 
 there is something which is not to be found in the 
 scientific judgments, namely, subjectivism; but, in 
 this case, he flatly contradicts himself, since the first 
 part of his essay is written to prove that there is sub- 
 jectivism in the scientific judgments as well as in 
 the moral judgments. He tells us now that when the 
 action of " character " (or of subjectivism) becomes 
 " preferential " in its effect, then the judgment by 
 this fact becomes logical. But what then ? As this 
 action of character is not " preferential " in the sci- 
 entific judgment, have we to believe that the scien- 
 tific judgment is, perhaps, no longer " logical " ? 
 Unless one means to make fun of logic, such affir- 
 mations cannot be taken seriously. 
 
 Or Mr. Dewey means to say that there is a mini- 
 mum of subjectivism in scientific judgments, while 
 the proportion is simply greater in moral judgments; 
 but then we have to deal with a mere differ- 
 ence in quantity, not in quality, not a difference in 
 the nature of the judgment; if the action of the 
 " character " is simply more complex in the moral 
 judgments than in the scientific judgments, this is 
 not enough to differentiate them " logically." And 
 then moral judgments are reduced to scientific judg- 
 ments. — One must choose. 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 97 
 
 Now, on the other hand, Professor Dewey cannot 
 choose the second alternative, since he started with 
 the idea of proving the opposite. On the other hand, 
 Dewey cannot not choose the second alternative, 
 since he speaks of *' logical conditions of a scien- 
 tific treatment of morality " ; unless one adopts 
 in ethics the same logic which is adopted in sci- 
 ence, one cannot speak of a " scientific " treatment 
 of morality. 
 
 Professor Dewey has finally accepted the second 
 alternative — and he sticks to it. The second half of 
 his essay, therefore, contradicts the first ; as was to 
 be expected. Here is his definition of " character " 
 — everything depends on this definition : " The 
 term * character ' denotes this complex continuum 
 of interactions [i. e., interactions of natural dispo- 
 sitions, of technique, of knowledge, of habits of 
 thought, etc.] in its ofiice of influencing final judg- 
 ment " (p. 14). This plainly indicates that for Mr. 
 Dewey " character " is an effect before being a cause, 
 a product (determined by considerations concerning 
 the future as well as by circumstances in the past), 
 and which acts only as a product strictly determined ; 
 " character " can be treated " logically " in the same 
 sense as any factor in any scientific judgment. All 
 attempts to differentiate between moral and scien- 
 tific judgments are doomed to failure after that. 
 
 To convince ourselves that such is really the point 
 of view adopted by Professor Dewey in the end, we 
 
 7 
 
98 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 need only summarize the end of his essay. It is true 
 that here and there the author seems to hesitate in 
 developing his ideas; it is the pleading of a de- 
 terminist, who is embarrassed by free-will reminis- 
 cences. Professor Dewey, at times, even takes 
 advantage of terms having a double meaning; es- 
 pecially when he considers the "scientific treatment" 
 as serving " to control the formation of judgment " 
 (p. 14). "To control" may mean to interfere in 
 an active fashion, independently of the scientific fac- 
 tors taken into consideration or it may mean simply 
 that, knowing the factors which may enter into the 
 determination, i. e., being conscious of them, this 
 consciousness only adds a new factor (just as deter- 
 mined as the others) in the formation of the judg- 
 ment. Professor Dewey proves the second sense to 
 be true, hut then speaks as if he had demonstrated 
 the first. It seems clear, therefore, to one who judges 
 from the spirit and not from the letter, that Professor 
 Dewey, in his conception of morality, finally adopts 
 the traditional scientific conception of judgment. 
 
 He wants to prove this: That an ethical judg- 
 ment " effects an absolutely reciprocal determina- 
 tion of the situation judged, and of the character 
 or disposition which is expressed in the act of 
 judging" (p. 17). 
 
 To appreciate, or to form, or to control, moral 
 judgments, three conditions are required: (i) One 
 must classify them, (2) one must know exactly the 
 psychological conditions, the " character " of the 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 99 
 
 judger, and also know (3) the social conditions in 
 which the judgment takes place, " the situation 
 judged." 
 
 (i) To classify: Mr. Dewey wishes to define 
 clearly the domain of ethics; he proposes to have a 
 sort of system of ethical " categories " correspond- 
 ing to the categories of time, space, matter, etc., in 
 physics. One must, for instance, agree on the mean- 
 ing of the term " moral standard," whether it has 
 any connection with happiness, or with the ideal of 
 perfection; thanks to this we might then discuss 
 profitably questions of ideal, of obligation, of re- 
 sponsibility, and of others. The writer confesses 
 that he does not see very well the bearing of such 
 theoretical discussions. What does Professor Dewey 
 exactly mean with those categories anyway? Does 
 he wish, after all, to persuade us that there remains 
 somewhere an essential difference between the logic 
 of science and that of morality; or does he simply 
 mean to point out the fact that the domain of moral 
 researches is different from that of physics, for ex- 
 ample, or other sciences? In the second case, it is 
 rather useless to write a chapter to prove so evident 
 a thing ; in the first case, those " logical " connections 
 between ethics and science, which precisely he wanted 
 to bring out, are not made clear. The only example 
 offered, that of the " moral standard," gives no 
 light; one does not see whether he speaks of an 
 absolute and imperative standard, or of a relative 
 and changing one. If the " absolute " standard is 
 
loo ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 meant, where does it come from? is it metaphysi- 
 cal ? is it the old " moral sense " ? But, then, what 
 is the use of a "scientific" treatment of morality? 
 Psychological factors and social factors cannot af- 
 fect it in the least. And if the " relative " standard 
 is meant, if the standard depends on the milieu and 
 on character as determined by contingencies, how 
 can we define the " category " of standard otherwise 
 than by the mere attribute of existence ? Then, here 
 again, we have a very superfluous chapter. One 
 thing seems clear to me in all this : Mr. Dewey wants 
 to bring ethics nearer to physical sciences, to prevent 
 arbitrariness in definitions and concepts; in short, 
 to confer upon ethics the logical qualities of natural 
 sciences. But " categories " are useless for that 
 purpose; even in physics, the categories of space, 
 time, matter, are of secondary importance. No 
 professor of physics, as far as we know, discusses 
 them as an indispensable introduction to his special 
 subject. They are questions pertaining to the theory 
 of knowledge, or, possibly, to psychology, rather 
 than to physics. In the same manner " moral cate- 
 gories " would have only a distant relation with 
 ethics, even if conceived as scientifically as physics. 
 If not conceived in this way, things may be diflfer- 
 ent; but then the parallelism between moral cate- 
 gories and scientific categories, which Professor 
 Dewey has in mind, exists no longer. 
 
 (2) Professor Dewey's demonstration becomes 
 much more satisfactory when he deals with the psy- 
 
THE DEWEY CASE loi 
 
 chological conditions of moral judgment. The in- 
 trinsic logic of his premises prevents him from going 
 astray : " Since character is a fact entering into any 
 moral judgment passed, ability of control depends 
 upon our power to state character in terms of generic 
 relation of conditions, which conditions are detach- 
 able from the pressure of circumstance in the par- 
 ticular case. Psychological analysis is the instru- 
 ment by which character is transformed from its 
 absorption in the values of immediate experience 
 into an objective, scientific fact. It is, indeed, a 
 stat-ement of experience in terms of its modes of 
 control of its own evolving" (p. 19). Thus, if we 
 isolate by analysis the factor of " character," we are 
 able to show that it is determined in its essence, and 
 determined also in its determination, i. e., in its 
 manner of judging. We cannot conceive of it in 
 any other way. Dewey even proposes to make an 
 " inventory " of the manners in which the different 
 psychological dispositions do influence our judg- 
 ment; and the results thus obtained " if true at all, 
 have exactly the same logical validity that is pos- 
 sessed by any ' physical law ' " (p. 20). 
 
 If, after that — be it that he does not realize the 
 consequences of his premises or be it that he does 
 not want to see them — Professor Dewey declares 
 that this analysis applied to experience allows us to 
 " control " judgments " instead of merely indulging 
 in them " (p. 21), this is of no importance; we have 
 pointed out above the double meaning of the term 
 
I02 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 " to control." Supposing that Professor Dewey take 
 it here in the sense of active intervention, indepen- 
 dently of the scientific conditions in judgment, no- 
 body else will be deceived by this amphibology after 
 the words which we have just quoted from Mr. 
 Dewey's own demonstration. Again, if Professor 
 Dewey claims that, while psychology shows to us 
 that the moral judgment is determined by contin- 
 gencies, psychology tells us nothing of the content 
 of the moral ideal, nor that '' consequently there 
 must be recourse to transcendental considerations — 
 to metaphysics" (p. 21), this alters in no way the 
 scientific problem; the idea of an ideal may be a 
 factor, to be sure, but it becomes one only after it 
 has entered the scientific or psychological net of 
 actions and interactions. Moreover, how would it 
 be possible to conciliate this appeal to metaphysics 
 with the following words, a few lines farther down : 
 ** There is no question here of idea as immediately 
 experienced. Only living, not metaphysics any 
 more than psychology, can ' give ' an ideal in this 
 sense " (p. 22). 
 
 (3) Sociological conditions. '' Character," we 
 have just seen, can be scientifically defined by us, 
 therefore it must be scientifically determined. Now 
 this factor of character. Professor Dewey goes on to 
 say, combines in an " absolute reciprocal determina- 
 tion " with the factor of the " situation judged " ; and 
 the scientific and determined nature of the latter is 
 even more evident than that of character. To bring 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 103 
 
 about a good moral judgment what do we need ? In 
 reply, Mr. Dewey says : " A social science which will 
 analyze a content as a combination of elements in 
 the same way that psychological analysis determines 
 an act as a set of attitudes " (p. 2^). It is, more- 
 over, impossible to observe very strictly the dis- 
 tinction between psychological and sociological con- 
 ditions because the social influences here taken into 
 consideration come into action only in as far as they 
 influence the judger, i. e., in as far as they become 
 psychological. Professor Dewey, therefore, wishes 
 here only to emphasize what he calls the '' continuity 
 of the scientific judgments," namely, the interaction 
 social, biological, physical, etc., phenomena when 
 they bear upon the moral judgment. " Any scene 
 of action which is social is also cosmic or physical. 
 It is also biological. Hence the absolute impossi- 
 bility of ruling out the physical and biological sci- 
 ences from bearing upon ethical science. If ethical 
 theory require, as one of its necessary conditions, 
 ability to describe in terms of itself the situation 
 which demands moral judgment, any proposition, 
 whether of mechanics, chemistry, geography, physiol- 
 ogy, or history, which facilitates and guarantees the 
 adequacy and truth of the description, becomes in 
 virtue of that fact an important auxiliary of ethical 
 science " (p. 24) . Professor Dewey opposes this con- 
 ception to that of materialists and of transcenden- 
 talists. Materialists, like those described there, exist 
 no longer, so we may ignore them. Transcenden- 
 
I04 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 talists are more interesting for us. It has been 
 shown that in discussing the psychological condi- 
 tions of moral judgments Mr. Dewey still hesitated 
 whether or not metaphysics had to be given up alto- 
 gether. This time he no longer hesitates : " The 
 fact that advance of physical and biological science 
 so profoundly modifies moral problems, and hence 
 moral judgments, and hence once more moral val- 
 ues, may serve as an argument against transcen- 
 dental ethics — since, according to the latter, such 
 obvious facts would be impossibilities" (p. 24). 
 
 Where now, in all this, is there any room left for 
 a pragmatic element? where the thinnest crack by 
 which it might slip in? Since a moral judgment is 
 the result of an " absolutely reciprocal determina- 
 tion " of the judger and of the situation judged, the 
 moral ideal itself is only a product of this combina- 
 tion and must vary from epoch to epoch ; and in its 
 variations it depends strictly upon the circumstances 
 in which the judger happens to be with regard to 
 the situation judged. A metaphysical ideal which 
 would not be determined in the scientific sense of 
 the word, is both impossible and useless; there is 
 no room for it. The moral ideal is brought about 
 " naturally " by the combination of the two above- 
 mentioned factors; the ideal of to-morrow will be 
 formed necessarily from the ideal of to-day. Now, 
 if I become conscious of this mechanism, I may see 
 where the ethics of to-morrow is aiming, and I may 
 favor (or thwart) its course; but in this very action 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 105 
 
 of favoring (or thwarting), the element of " recip- 
 rocal determination," which can be scientifically 
 foreseen, is far from lacking. 
 
 If the method proposed by Mr. Dewey is conscien- 
 tiously applied, the results reached will be the same 
 as those of Levy-Briihl in his La morale et la science 
 des moeurs, he himself following in the steps of 
 Durkheim's Methode sociologique. It is not a mat- 
 ter of mere chance if on both sides of the Atlantic, 
 and without seeming to know of each other, those 
 men agree so well on a theory which precludes prag- 
 matism. Is it not as if one were reading Dewey — 
 only in a style more direct, more transparent — 
 when one comes across these words of Levy-Briihl : 
 " La conception nouvelle des rapports de la pratique 
 et de la theorie morale implique qu'il y a une realite 
 sociale objective, comme il y a une realite physique 
 objective, et que I'homme, s'il est raisonnable, doit 
 se comporter a I'egard de la premiere comme de 
 I'autre, c'est a dire s'efforcer d'en connaitre les 
 lois pour s'en rendre maitre autant qu'il lui sera 
 possible." {La morale et la science des moeurs, 2d 
 ed., p. 24.) 
 
 Only Levy-Briihl is more determined, more con- 
 scious of the bearing of his method : " D'une fagon 
 generale, notre conception de la nature s'agrandit et 
 s'enrichit chaque fois qu'une portion de la realite qui 
 nous est donnee dans T experience se ' desubjective ' 
 pour * s'objectiver.' " {Pragmatism, p. 29.) "Just like 
 Professor Dewey, Levy-Briihl wants to complete the 
 
io6 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 psychological anaylsis of the judger by the sociologi- 
 cal analysis of the situation judged : " Au lieu d'inter- 
 preter les phenomenes sociaux du passe a I'aide de 
 la psychologic courante, ce serait au contraire la 
 connaissance scientifique — c'est a dire sociologique 
 — de ces phenomenes qui nous procurerait peu a peu 
 une psychologic plue conforme a la diversite reelle 
 de I'humanite present et passee." ^ 
 
 Everywhere Levy-Briihl very plainly expresses his 
 theories and his results, when with Mr. Dewey the 
 reader constantly feels caution. The first frankly 
 states : " Une science ne peut etre normative en tant 
 que theorique" (p. 14). And what the second 
 wanted so much to show was that a science can be 
 normative while theoretical; but the power of logic 
 finally carried him one way, though his intention 
 was evidently the other way. Read his note to 
 page 13 (there are very interesting statements some- 
 
 * La morale et la science des mceurs, p. 79. There are even cer- 
 tain concessions to popular moral conceptions which can be found 
 in Levy-Briihl as well as in Mr. Dewey. Thus for instance, the first 
 says: "De meme que nous avons de presque toute la realite donnee 
 dans I'espace deux representations parfaitement distinctes, I'une sen- 
 sible et subjective, I'autre conceptuelle et objective; de meme que 
 le monde des sons et des couleurs est aussi I'objet de la science phy- 
 sique, . . . de meme nous pouvons posseder en meme temps deux 
 representations de la realite morale, I'une subjective, I'autre objec- 
 tive" (p. 31). Such a concession is useless as long as we deal in a 
 scientific manner with our topic. (Levy-Briihl had already adopted 
 the distinction in his first book.) The conception of a morale con- 
 ditionnelle introduced by A. Naville in the discussion (Revue philo- 
 sophique, December, 1906) sufl&ces to clear the field, and allows us 
 once for all to ignore popular conceptions of ethics in science. I 
 may add that the distinction made by Ldvy-Bruhl does not side- 
 track the discussion at all in his work. 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 107 
 
 times in Professor Dewey's notes!) in which, after 
 his attempt to reduce scientific judgments to moral 
 judgments, or, in other words, the theoretical judg- 
 ments to normative or pragmatic judgments, he re- 
 fuses *' to draw sharp lines between philosophy (his 
 philosophy) as merely normative and the sciences as 
 merely descriptive." Why does he refuse? Is it 
 because he sees the inevitable consequences? 
 
 We are now in a position to understand the funda- 
 mental difference between Messrs. James and Dewey 
 in the problem under consideration ; both start with 
 the same end in view, which is to shake off intellec- 
 tualism; both, again, when they examine conscien- 
 tiously the problem, are forced, as they want to re- 
 main logical, to adapt their pragmatic theories to the 
 requirements of reason. But Professor James proves 
 specially anxious not to lose sight of the end which 
 he had proposed to his speculations, and more anx- 
 ious to save the practical results than to offer a mere 
 philosophical argument ; thus, he remains true to the 
 flag of pragmatism. Professor Dewey, on the con- 
 trary, proves especially anxious to offer a fine and 
 smooth argument, and thus allows himself to be 
 driven away by his speculations from the purpose he 
 had at first in view; he finds himself, at the end, to 
 be the defender of a theory exactly opposite to that 
 which he had intended to prove : and this just because 
 he is the more conscientious of the two. 
 
 From this point of view, therefore, people are 
 
io8 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 right enough when they maintain that Mr. Dewey is 
 the most philosophical mind among the leading 
 pragmatists, only, his philosophy is at the expense 
 of his pragmatism. 
 
 It is well known that Mr. Peirce found himself 
 caught in the same difficulty. He has admitted it, 
 and the famous passage in Baldwin's Dictionary has 
 been often quoted, in which he refuses to go all the 
 way with too buoyant disciples. One ought now to 
 compare Peirce's statement with a curious note of 
 Professor Dewey's — another case where a very sig- 
 nificant statement is relegated to a foot-note : " The 
 point of view which is here presented is, of course, 
 distinctly pragmatic. I am not quite sure, however, 
 of the implications of certain forms of pragmatism. 
 They sometimes seem to imply that a rational or 
 logical statement is all right up to a certain point, 
 but has fixed external limits, so that at critical points 
 recourse must be had to considerations which are dis- 
 tinctly of an irrational or extra-logical order. . . . 
 It is just the opposite which I am endeavoring to 
 sustain, vis. . . ." (p. lo). Yes, of course. There 
 is the dilemma precisely : Professor James sees well 
 enough — without heralding it too loud — that in 
 following logic to the end, there is no pragmatism 
 left, and in order to be allowed to remain a pragma- 
 tist, it is necessary, at one certain point — to jump.^ 
 While Professor Dewey, who obstinately persists 
 
 * "Materialism and agnosticism [read simply 'determinism' even 
 werie they true, could never gain universal and popular acceptance, 
 
THE DEWEY CASE 109 
 
 in remaining true to logic, keeps of pragmatism 
 nothing but the word, and lands in the science des 
 mccurs. . . - 
 
 for they both, alike, give a solution of things which is irrational to the 
 practical third of our nature" {Will to Believe, p. 126). Even were 
 they true, a man who would really believe in the possibility of prov- 
 ing logically that they are not true, would not have recourse to such 
 hypothetical argumentation. 
 
PART II 
 PRAGMATISM AND MODERNISM 
 
 Quand la populace se mele de raisonner, tout 
 est perdu. — Voltaire. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 SOCIAL PHENOMENA EXPLAINING THE APPEARANCE 
 OF A PRAGMATIC PHILOSOPHY 
 
 I. In a democratic country and epoch philosophic thought is 
 
 not free, for we must take into consideration the practical 
 consequences of our theories. Philosophy is less free to-day 
 everywhere than it formerly was ; but in America, a country 
 without traditions of an intellectual aristocracy, it is still 
 less free than elsewhere. Moreover, in America, a rich 
 country, but the wealth of which must come chiefly from 
 the soil, there is need of a philosophy believing in action; 
 a determinist, or fatalistic philosophy would not be tolerated. 
 Proofs that this is the case: The philosophy of William 
 James reflects exactly this way of looking at things ; how he 
 seeks to justify it. — Special features (nuances) that distin- 
 guish American from English pragmatism: Prof. James 
 speaks to a whole people who are already convinced ; he sets 
 forth his doctrines with serenity well assured of sympathetic 
 audiences. Mr. Schiller addresses a restricted audience, a 
 university and intellectual audience, and is obliged to assume 
 a more polemical attitude toward intellectualism. Prof. 
 James grows enthusiastic over the idea of risks in life; 
 Mr. Schiller rather points out the danger of non-prag- 
 matism, etc.; Mr. Papini sings the same tune as Mr. 
 Schiller, only in a higher key. 
 
 II. On the other hand, to counterbalance the consequences that 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA iii 
 
 might follow this philosophy of success, which threatens 
 to lead to Hobbes's homo homini lupus, we must have a 
 curb or check. Religion is the only efficacious curb. Ac- 
 cordingly, the obligation on pragmatism is to be religious. 
 For conscience without religion, without God to ratify the 
 voice of conscience by reward or recompense, is insufficient; 
 men would soon content themselves with the mere appearance 
 of virtue. Fallacy of the theory which maintains that dogma 
 disappears. There are pragmatic dogmas and indififerent 
 dogmas; only the latter are relegated to the background. 
 Facts which support this view: Politicians, magistrates, 
 financiers, manufacturers, the intellectual class, all sup- 
 port and countenance religion. Ethical societies in their 
 role of opponents of the churches are a failure. Illustra- 
 tions drawn from the financial panic of 1907-1908. Here 
 again Professor James reflects faithfully this aspect of the 
 pragmatic spirit; at least, when he speaks as a pragmatist, 
 this utilitarian side of religion is the only one he brings out. 
 — Points of difference between the French and the English 
 pragmatists in this matter. 
 
 From all that precedes, we are forced to con- 
 clude that there must be something more at the 
 base of the astonishing success of pragmatism than 
 philosophic principles. If, from the point of view 
 of thought, its worth is so little, how explain its 
 triumph ? The answer is that special and accidental 
 circumstances have, so to speak, forced the hand of 
 philosophers. 
 
 I 
 
 To seek out these accidental occurrences and pre- 
 sent them to view is the object of this chapter. 
 
 I observe, in the first place, that the great strong- 
 hold of pragmatism is America ; it has some friends 
 
112 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 in England; but, in spite of a certain renewal of 
 interest in ethical questions noticeable everywhere 
 in these days, it has not taken deep root anywhere 
 else. Now civilization in America is the daughter 
 of that of Europe, an emancipated daughter, by the 
 way, but who has emancipated herself very rapidly 
 and very normally. I say this without any mental 
 reservation whether of blame or of approbation ; we 
 need not ask whether evolution has been retrogres- 
 sive or progressive. What does interest us I shall 
 now state. 
 
 The relations between philosophy and life have 
 changed during the last few centuries. It is need- 
 less to say there has always been reciprocal action, 
 mutual influence, of the one on the other. For in- 
 stance, philosophers have always to some extent 
 adapted their philosophy to the wants of the people. 
 But formerly all depended on them (the philoso- 
 phers). Of their speculations only what they wished, 
 and as they wished it, reached the masses ; they had 
 the prudence to cultivate in the minds of said masses 
 a healthful — I was going to say " pragmatic " — 
 ignorance, reserving for their own special medita- 
 tion the most considerable and the most delicate part 
 of the domain of thought; they had their special 
 language, the Latin, which screened them from the 
 effects of their indiscretions. To-day, on the con- 
 trary, their books are written in the popular tongues ; 
 thanks to the development of printing, compulsory 
 education, journalism, public libraries, etc., these 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 113 
 
 philosophic theories filter down to the very dregs 
 of the populace of every nation; that means that 
 they have a much greater practical importance. 
 Owing to this the philosopher has a moral responsi- 
 bility that he did not formerly know. In other 
 words, by automatic action, the freedom of thought 
 granted to the masses exactly equals the freedom of 
 thought taken from the philosophers ; that is a law 
 of nature; the degrading effects of it are making 
 themselves felt everyw^here. 
 
 But, as I have just said, there exist also in a coun- 
 try like America special and aggravating circum- 
 stances. Among Europeans, the existence of deeply 
 rooted traditions of life — which are only habits 
 passed on from generation to generation — dimin- 
 ishes the influence of thought and guarantees still to 
 philosophic speculation a certain measure of free- 
 dom. In America, a land without traditions, men 
 act more as they please, and philosophic thought is 
 less free in proportion. Nay more, in America we 
 have to do with a nation in a constant state of cre- 
 ation. The American with one or two generations 
 of native ancestors back of him does not reproduce 
 himself; increase of population is due to immigra- 
 tion. This renders, therefore, the formation of 
 traditions, even for the future, extremely difficult 
 if not impossible, — another cause (this) of the 
 considerable practical cast and weight of philosophi- 
 cal ideas and the proportional diminution of freedom 
 of thought. Finally, America has immense natural 
 
 8 
 
114 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 resources to develop and cultivate; she is rich, but 
 only on condition of exerting a formidable energy; 
 her climate is trying and changeable, and the earth 
 only yields its foison of wealth (I mean mineral 
 resources as well as the product of agriculture) as 
 the result of compulsion. 
 
 Under such circumstances a people does not choose 
 its conception of life, or let us say its philosophy. 
 Its thinkers, if it is so fortunate as to be granted any, 
 will not be able to escape the influence of this atmos- 
 phere. Ideas and principles purely speculative will 
 be nothing, the consequences and the results of the- 
 ories will be everything. A philosophy which should 
 infer, in any part whatever of its system, a limit to 
 action, and which should not at the same time be a 
 means of protection for action, might as well not 
 exist : it would be inoperative. A man who should 
 be inaccessible to considerations of practical life in 
 his method of thinking would be regarded not only 
 as a useless person, but as a dangerous and even 
 noxious person. 
 
 Such is the attitude of the elite in America. By 
 " elite " I mean those who make the nation what it 
 is, the kings of industry, the great creators of busi- 
 ness. (The word "elite" in history does not have 
 one and the same absolute meaning everywhere; a 
 Greek of the elite resembles a Roman of the elite or 
 an American of the elite as a book resembles a sword 
 or a piece of gold.) To realize this one need only 
 know something of the life story of these great ere- 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 115 
 
 ators of American civilization — who are not the 
 Washingtons, the Lincolns, the Roosevelts, but the 
 Vanderbilts, the Goulds, the Carnegies, the Rocke- 
 fellers, the Pierpont Morgans, and sometimes even 
 such men as Tweed and Croker. The latest of these 
 colossi, Harriman, '' the Napoleon of railroads," 
 has been very well hit off by a writer well known 
 in America, Lefevre. (American Magazine, June, 
 1907.) "This man," he says, "is efficiency mad; 
 he wants results, and he obtains results. An un- 
 productive piece of work he considers immoral." 
 This is the credo of all of these men of the elite, 
 enterprising, energetic, magnificent, who represent 
 throughout the whole world the American " type." 
 
 The intellectual class is just like them. In the 
 July-September number, 1907, of the American 
 Journal of Sociology, the editor thereof (Professor 
 A. W. Small) publishes an earnest article in which 
 he expresses fear that American thinkers go astray 
 into unproductive researches. He speaks first of all 
 especially of the social sciences and shows that their 
 worth depends on the reply they make to this ques- 
 tion : " What is there potentially within the self- 
 conscious human being and how can he embody it 
 in a practical value? " And next he says : 
 
 " I can see nothing but hysterics in any human 
 activity whatsoever which is not in some way contrib- 
 uting its quota toward answering this question. Sci- 
 ences all seem to me so many triflings with capricious 
 conceits about life, unless each in its own way is co- 
 
1 16 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 operating with all other investigations of human expe- 
 rience in working out the completest report possible 
 upon the main question " (p. 400). 
 
 All the sciences should be only replies to the ques- 
 tion "What should we know?" but only in the 
 interest of the question ''What should we do?" 
 (p. 222). Contempt for the contemplative or aes- 
 thetic life is general. It is superfluous, however, to 
 insist on these facts, which are pretty widely known. 
 Nevertheless, let me repeat here, as an illustration, 
 an incident in the life of the well-known President 
 Harper of the University of Chicago. Upon his 
 death-bed this man, whose life was so fraught with 
 labor, uttered in a prayer these characteristic words : 
 " And Lord, may there be for me a life after this 
 life; and in that life may there he work to do, tasks 
 to accomplish! " Contrast this ideal with the mo- 
 nastic retreats of old, with the apocalyptic paradises 
 of past ages ! And do not forget the effect of suc- 
 cess upon men's minds. The role these great men 
 of action play in their land, in fact, on the stage 
 of the world, intoxicates them. And the envy that 
 other nations feel seems to still more authenticate 
 and ratify their opinions in their own eyes and urges 
 them continually on in this method of looking at life. 
 Approach such people as these, now, and say to 
 them that there are men in another hemisphere who 
 do not reason from the practical value of a theory to 
 its truth, who do not judge a philosophy by its 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 117 
 
 fruits, men who do not dream of identifying truth 
 with utility. They will not understand you. 
 
 And the pragmatist philosophers are simply men 
 who formulate this cast of mind in the technical 
 language of philosophy. 
 
 Looking again into William James's book, we see 
 there is scarcely a page in which he does not soundly 
 rate the traditional philosophy of " refinement " 
 which will never satisfy minds of the empirical 
 temper. (Pragmatism, pp. 22, 2^.) The tradi- 
 tional philosophy is considered dead : " Truth in- 
 dependent, truth that we find merely ; truth no longer 
 malleable to human need; truth incorrigible, in a 
 word ; such truth exists superabundantly — or is 
 supposed to exist by rationalistically minded 
 thinkers ; but that means only the dead heart of the 
 living tree, and its being there means only that truth 
 also has its palaeontology, and its ' prescription,' 
 and may grow stiff with years of veteran service 
 and petrified in men's regard by sheer antiquity." 
 (Pragmatism, pp. 64, 65.) 
 
 "If an ' incorrigible ' truth exists per se, it ought 
 not to exist for us, at any rate it cannot exist, it 
 does not exist." Mark this : " Never were as many 
 men of a decidedly empiricist proclivity in existence 
 as there are at the present day " (p. 14) . And this : 
 " We philosophers have to reckon with these feelings 
 on your part. In the last resort it will be by them 
 that all our philosophies shall ultimately be judged " 
 (p. 38). This much is clear: If the traditional con- 
 
Ii8 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 ception of philosophy does not bring us satisfaction, 
 then we must change that conception. " When we 
 say this theory solves a problem on the whole more 
 satisfactorily than that theory," that means [and 
 that must mean] more satisfactorily to ourselves, 
 and individuals will emphasize their points of satis- 
 faction differently. Pragmatism agrees with nom- 
 inalism, with utilitarianism, with positivism, so far 
 as these philosophies are *' anti-intellectualist " ; 
 that is, don't generalize, don't declare true what is 
 not expedient and don't occupy themselves with the 
 idea for the idea's sake (pp. 53, 54). " Theories be- 
 come instruments, not answers to enigmas " (p. 53). 
 Philosophy takes account of nothing but the prag- 
 matic question, " In what respects would the world 
 be different if this alternative or that were true?" 
 (pp.48, 200). 
 
 We see now why theories like the materialistic 
 theory and like Spencerianism are a priori abomi- 
 nable systems; they are so, not on account of their 
 principles, but on account of their consequences, — 
 the one, more general, declaring mind incapable of 
 reacting against the determinism of the world of 
 phenomena ; the other, more specialized, announcing 
 the final dissolution of things; both suggesting the 
 uselessness of effort, both discouraging, therefore 
 both false. " This utter final wreck and tragedy is 
 of the essence of scientific materialism as at present 
 understood" (p. 105). And if some one should 
 object that a healthy mind does not occupy itself 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 119 
 
 with consequences when the question is solely that of 
 a search for truth, " Well," replies Professor James, 
 " I can only say that if you say this you do injustice 
 to human nature " (p. 108). " The absolute things, 
 the last things, the overlapping things, are the true 
 philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seri- 
 ously about them and the mind with the shortest 
 views is simply the mind of the more shallow man " 
 (p. 108). Professor James is admirable when it 
 comes to consistency, and he would unhesitatingly 
 sacrifice to pragmatism — which he deems to be of 
 vital importance for the well-being of humanity — 
 the aspiration of the philosophers of all time, namely, 
 the finding of the causal scientific relations between 
 phenomena, the conceiving (they are his own words) 
 the " Multiverse " of the masses as a " Universe." 
 There is no reason (he thinks) why man should con- 
 tinue this search ; every time one has tried it ; the end 
 has been the strangling of all spontaneity in a logical 
 system of causes and effects ; now this is intolerable 
 from the practical and human point of view, and 
 since it is easy to see that the same thing will keep 
 happening again and again, let us make a stand once 
 for all for pluralism. " We can easily conceive that 
 every fact in the world is separate and singular; 
 that is, dissimilar to every other, and sole of its 
 kind." When we see a relation we affirm a '' con- 
 catenation " ; when we fail to see one, never mind, 
 " it saves us from all feverish excitement " over a 
 principle of sublimity and " carries us forward into 
 the stream of experience with a cool head " (p. 148). 
 
120 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 " The true, to put it very briefly, is only the ex- 
 pedient in the way of our thinking " (p. 222). The 
 true changes with reference to us, and to keep on 
 conceiving it from this relative standpoint is our 
 philosophic duty. " Truth this side of the Pyre- 
 nees, error on the other side," wrote Pascal, iron- 
 ically. Truth yesterday, error to-day, says William 
 James, seriously. 
 
 " Ptolemaic astronomy, Euclidean space, Aristo- 
 telian logic, scholastic metaphysics, were expedient for 
 centuries ; but human experience has boiled over those 
 limits, and we now call these things only relatively 
 true, or true within those borders of experience. ' Ab- 
 solutely ' they are false ; for we know that those limits 
 were casual and might have been transcended by past 
 theorists just as they are by present thinkers " (p. 223). 
 
 True, William James is right : '' The general tri- 
 umph method would mean an enormous change in 
 the 'temperament' of philosophy'' (p. 51). 
 
 And once more we ask : What reason for all this 
 turning of things upside down? The reason is be- 
 cause logical pluralism and expediency allow prag- 
 matism and ethical meliorism. 
 
 " For rationalism reality is ready-made and com- 
 plete from all eternity, while for pragmatism it is still 
 in the making, it awaits part of its complexion from the 
 future." {Pragmatism, p. 257.) 
 
 Only those abandon themselves to rationalism and 
 absolutism who, either because of inability or wil- 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 121 
 
 fulness, have no want for a philosophy of action. 
 For others the belief in meliorism is indispensable, 
 the belief in " risk " is healthful, and Professor 
 James works his way up finally to the following 
 utterances, so fraught with Yankee energy: 
 
 *' Take the hypothesis seriously and as a live one. 
 Suppose that the world's author put the case to you 
 before creation, saying : * I am going to make a world 
 not certain to be saved, — a world the perfection of 
 which shall be conditional merely, the condition being 
 that each several agent does its own " level best." I 
 offer you the chance of taking part in such a world. 
 Its safety, you see, is unwarranted. It is a real adven- 
 ture, with real danger. Yet it may win through. It 
 is a social scheme of co-operative work genuinely to 
 be done. Will you join the procession ? Will you trust 
 yourself and trust the other agents enough to face the 
 risk?' 
 
 " Should you in all seriousness, if participation in 
 such a world were proposed to you, feel bound to reject 
 it as not safe enough? Would you say that rather 
 than be part and parcel of so fundamentally pluralistic 
 and irrational a universe, you preferred to relapse into 
 the slumber of nonentity from which you had been 
 momentarily aroused by the tempter's voice? 
 
 " Of course, if you are normally constituted, you 
 would do nothing of the sort. There is a healthy- 
 minded buoyancy in most of us which such a universe 
 would exactly fit. We would therefore accept the 
 offer — ' Top ! und schlag auf schlag ! ' " 
 
 Verily this people and this philosophy are made 
 the one for the other. 
 
122 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 Professor James has thrown himself more and 
 more into the work of propagating his ideas among 
 the general public. He has written several vigorous 
 articles for American magazines, in which it is easy 
 to see that to him pragmatism is at bottom only a 
 kind of philosophical justification he would like to 
 offer for the happy dispositions of his contempo- 
 raries, and especially of his compatriots. One of 
 these articles bears the expressive sub-title, " The 
 Keys which unlock Hidden Energies." (American 
 Magazine, November, 1907.) In another one — 
 ''The Social Value of the College-bred" (Mc- 
 Clure's Magazine y February, 1908) — we read that 
 our universities ought to teach biographical history; 
 that is to say, teach the virtues that have succeeded 
 in the world and been admired, train college stu- 
 dents to become men and not mere pedants of 
 science and literature; and the author adds: 
 
 " Democracy is on its trial and no one knows how 
 it will stand the ordeal. Abounding about us are pessi- 
 mistic prophets. . . ." Now who knows? They may 
 be right : " Who can be absolutely certain that this 
 [failure] may not be the career of democracy? Nothing 
 future is quite secure; states enough have inwardly 
 rotted; and democracy as a whole may undergo self- 
 poisoning. But, on the other hand, democracy is a kind 
 of religion and we are bound not to admit its failure. 
 Faiths and Utopias are the noblest exercise of human 
 reason, and no one with a spark of reason in him will 
 sit down fatalistically before the croaker's picture" 
 (pp. 420, 421). 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 123 
 
 Still if pragmatism is the American philosophy, 
 natural, necessary, and unique, it is not exclusively 
 American. It is also English, for example. Eng- 
 lish, but note the shade of difference. Mr. Schiller 
 is not dealing, as is Professor James, with a public 
 pragmatic already in temperament, with a public of 
 converts. Or, at any rate, the English public he ad- 
 dresses is such to a much less degree. Mr. Schiller, 
 it is true, has passed through an American univer- 
 sity; but he is influenced in writing by the Oxford 
 University atmosphere, and Oxford is much more 
 in contact and in sympathy with the calm and settled 
 civilization of the old world than is an American 
 university. Professor James had only to authenti- 
 cate, note down and approve; while Mr. Schiller, 
 with exactly the same ideas, finds himself in his 
 milieu set down as a dreamer, and has need of all the 
 fiery enthusiasm of an apostle to make himself under- 
 stood. With Professor James you never feel that 
 you are listening to a paradox ; he always has the ap- 
 pearance of saying to his public (and he is right) : 
 " In your hearts you think as I do," and he only 
 endeavors to calmly remove misunderstandings and 
 to prove that difficulties are only apparently such; 
 while Mr. Schiller has to shake and arouse his 
 audiences; he stoutly and loudly asseverates the 
 antagonism that exists between intellectualism and 
 pragmatism. We need ony recall his comparison 
 between two theories (Humanisnty pp. 9-12) : 
 ** There is no future life " ; " there is a future life." 
 
1 24 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 The first is the more acceptable from the rationalist 
 point of view; but the second, which appeals to our 
 needs and desires and calls for the will to believe, is 
 the true one. Mr. Schiller does not say '' still," 
 '' nevertheless," " in spite of appearances " ; he says 
 that it is precisely because the second is the " voli- 
 tional " theory (that is, one in which " our thought 
 is impelled and guided by the promptings of de- 
 sire ") that it is the true one. 
 
 Again Professor James expatiates complacently 
 upon the idea of " risk " requisite to give the true 
 joy of living ; he speaks with the fine assurance that 
 becomes the scion of a race that " is mewing its 
 mighty youth," of the paralytic and the old, as if 
 those words did not correspond to anything real in 
 his thought. But Mr. Schiller looks at the matter 
 from another angle; he is a pessimist, and the first 
 merit of pragmatism, in his eyes, would be its deliv- 
 ering us from " what constitutes perhaps the worst 
 and most paralyzing horror of the naturalistic view 
 of life, — the nightmare of an indifferent universe." 
 Note: Its delivering us; this means that the evil 
 is already there; it is not a question of losing faith 
 in life; it z^ lost; but it is a question of finding it 
 again, and the second merit of pragmatism is that 
 " it will prove a great tonic to revigorate a griev- 
 ously depressed humanity." {Humanism, p. 13.) 
 
 When they are treating of the fundamental diffi- 
 culties of pragmatism the language of the two men is 
 again characteristic. Professor James placidly recog- 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 125 
 
 nizes the fact that pragmatism admits " common 
 sense " as its foundation ; it is philosophy that has 
 passed through the sieve of experience ever since the 
 time of exceedingly remote ancestors. (Pragmatism, 
 p. 170.) Mr. Schiller cannot permit himself to go so 
 far as that in the country of Bacons, Humes, Stuart 
 Mills, and Huxleys, who, indeed, claim to be above 
 " common sense." So he says, more modestly : No, 
 I do not wish to receive common sense as " sacro- 
 sanct," but let us only try " to start from these con- 
 ceptions, and see whether we shall not get as far 
 with them as with any other of the philosophies of 
 history; at any rate, see if we shall not get as far 
 with them as we may want to get." (Humanism, 
 p. 19.) It is easy to see the nuance of difference 
 here. 
 
 Shall I add a word about Giovanni Papini, the 
 Italian pragmatist ? Mr. Papini thinks it a frightful 
 error, the indifference of thinkers of the Latin race 
 respecting the practical consequences of the deter- 
 minist-creed of the scientists. If Mr. Schiller vocif- 
 erates his pragmatism, Mr. Papini howls his out 
 in violent, eccentric, and incoherent paradoxes ; and 
 while Messrs. Dewey, James, and even Schiller wish 
 very much to preserve for pragmatism the decent 
 appearance of a philosophy, to Mr. Papini philos- 
 ophy is the enemy, and pragmatism " is less a phi- 
 losophy than a method of doing without philos- 
 ophy." (Popular Science Monthly, October, 1907, 
 p. 354.) In the case of others, the vain efforts of 
 
126 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 men to solve the great problems of life seem a good 
 argument to use to get converts to pragmatism 
 (compare, for example, Mr. Schiller's Humanism, 
 p. xix). With Papini these are unnecessary conces- 
 sions; to him it would apparently be mere play to 
 solve the problem of the universe. Plato and Aris- 
 totle, Thomas Aquinas, and Albert the Great, Des- 
 cartes, and Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel are only great 
 simpletons; the truth is (he says) these problems 
 are of no importance for us. " The pragmatists 
 are all anti-agnostics, and maintain that it is not 
 true that these problems are too lofty for our intelli- 
 gence, but too devoid of sense, too stupid, and that 
 our unwillingness to busy ourselves with such mat- 
 ters is not a proof of the impotence, but of the 
 power of our mind." {Popular Science Monthly, 
 PP- 355> 35^-) This recalls the American Chris- 
 tian Science doctors, who maintain they can heal 
 any kind of a malady if they only will to do so; 
 the curious thing, though, is that very frequently 
 — and almost always when they might have the 
 opportunity of getting a glorious victory over their 
 adversaries — they don't will to do it. Apparently 
 they also desire to test their own power of mind ! ^ 
 
 * One can read, however, in the Mercure de France (Nov. i, 1907) 
 a short story by Mr. Papini which does not seem in the same vein. 
 He says in The Devil Told Me ("Le Demon m'a dit " ) that if Adam and 
 Eve had eaten all the apples of the tree of the knowledge of good and 
 evil they would have become wise in everything, — But, after all, 
 perhaps the devil, when he told Papini that, had in his pocket some 
 of these apples of Eden which he offered to his interlocutor, and that 
 the latter threw them disdainfully away. Too bad for philosophy; 
 if the devil had only chosen another confidant ! 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 127 
 
 It is futile to dwell on considerations that are 
 only too evidently aside from the main concern. 
 What have matters like economy of time or econ- 
 omy of thought {loc. cit. p. 356) got to do with 
 truth? Nothing, absolutely nothing; still less, if 
 possible, than the optimistic or pessimistic conse- 
 quences of a theory, or progress, or meliorism, and 
 the theory of " risk." 
 
 n 
 
 But there is something more. At the same time 
 that you exalt the power of action, of energy, the 
 spirit of initiative, you must also think of the out- 
 come of it all. Life, as it presents itself to the aver- 
 age man imbued with such ideas, is no more than 
 a frantic race for success and a struggle in which 
 the strongest triumphs. Working along such a line 
 as that we shall only arrive at the homo homini lupus 
 of Hobbes. I do not wish to be too hard on human- 
 ity. Let us concede that our civilization would never 
 again be willing to ignore the Christian doctrine 
 of justice for the weak. Nevertheless, life proves 
 superabundantly that, in the world of solid reality 
 at least, if we wish men to hold in check their 
 selfish pursuit of happiness, we must have mo- 
 tives more powerful than that sentimentalism and 
 that altruism which is instinctive in the human 
 heart. It is a fact that we see everywhere men of 
 
1 28 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 power favoring the social conditions which guaran- 
 tee them the exercise of their power, whereas it is 
 the downtrodden class who, when they protest, ask 
 for more altruism in others. Hence there are 
 needed, in order to react against human nature, cer- 
 tain moral restraints, which themselves amount to 
 nothing unless they borrow their sanction and 
 authority from a power exterior and superior to 
 man, — in a word, religion. Laws punish crime 
 according to the mere letter of their edicts, and even 
 ethical motives are only human, and, consequently, 
 insufficient. Let us imagine a man who is able 
 to get the better of others while preserving an 
 outward show of morality: there is really no rea- 
 son why he should not do it if he wants to apply 
 strictly his philosophy of " results " and of " suc- 
 cess." As Fouillee very well says, in his recent 
 Morale des idees-forces, in the chapter on " Dis- 
 interestedness " : The appeal to ethics, to the gen- 
 eral interest of society, as conceived by past theories 
 (utilitarianism and socialism included) " is a fine 
 thing, provided I have the will to subordinate my- 
 self thereto, and, if need be, sacrifice myself for it. 
 But, again, by what reasons weighty enough to win 
 my assent can the sacrifice of interest be secured in 
 the name of the idea of interest?" That is the 
 point. . . . Fouillee himself proposes " a persuasive 
 ideal, higher than which the understanding can con- 
 ceive nothing." But here again some one may say: 
 I am abstractedly persuaded of the grandeur of this 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 129 
 
 ideal, but I have strong special reasons that keep 
 me from the desire I feel of yielding to it. Persua- 
 sive ethics is a Utopia more noble than others, but 
 yet deceptive. If it is left to man to persuade him- 
 self to such and such actions, neither his fellowmen, 
 nor, I venture to say, he himself, will dare to take 
 the risk of building solidly on that foundation. We 
 can imagine occasions when, in order to be morally 
 sublime, a man will think it necessary to lie, deceive, 
 rob — what then? Personal morality (which is, 
 after all, that of many of the intellectual class in our 
 days) leaves morality entirely at the discretion of 
 each individual. From the point of view of social 
 order, given the egoistic nature of man, it is a fatal 
 theory ; and the man moving constantly in the world 
 of practical realities does not find there the moral 
 restraint which society needs. The voice of con- 
 science without a God back of it is a dead letter. 
 Why should I care about a voice that speaks in the 
 name of nothing? or even one (as some will have 
 it) that speaks in the name of humanity? As if 
 I were not a part of that humanity! — and, very 
 naturally, that part which most interests me, unless 
 some superior power forces me to interest myself 
 in others more than in myself, or as much, at any 
 rate. Really, if you think of it once, the keen, in- 
 telligent, good man would be very foolish to allow 
 himself to be stopped by this obstacle, by this phan- 
 tom of conscience with which agnostic moralists 
 
I30 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 have for a long time been trying (and still often 
 try) ^ to allure us. 
 
 And people reason thus, naturally and uncon- 
 sciously. Hence the imperative necessity of reli- 
 gion as a support of morality, something absolutely 
 imperative as a condition of order, in every people 
 among whom practical life is the chief thing and the 
 contemplative life a luxury. One might well put it 
 absolutely and say everywhere; but it is especially 
 imperative in America for this reason, that here the 
 consequences of the lack of a religious check would 
 be more dangerous because the conditions are more 
 favorable than anywhere else for the development 
 of moral individualism (which means, be it remem- 
 bered, less favorable than elsewhere for the devel- 
 opment of intellectual individualism). Every re- 
 flecting man is keenly conscious of this in America, 
 — the magistrate and the judge as well as the busi- 
 ness man, the writer, the philosopher. There is no 
 country where the sentiment of the necessity of be- 
 lief is so ardently fostered, where religion is so ener- 
 getically maintained (I do not say rooted) through 
 the united action of the wealthy class and the intel- 
 lectual class. We have here few of those bold and 
 independent radicals who dare to ignore the prag- 
 matic needs of the nation and take their position on 
 a foundation purely intellectual. ^ All those who 
 
 * Even our American ethical culture societies, alluded to by me 
 elsewhere in this volume, have no other end in view. 
 
 Even in American universities, instructors must be infinitely 
 circumspect; for the proportion of young people who are to devote 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 131 
 
 professionally or otherwise have a certain influence 
 on the people or comprehend the social situation are 
 tacitly agreed on this point. Even the sceptics (there 
 are a few of these; for as James has well said, a 
 man chooses his philosophical belief according to 
 his personal needs) know the social value of reli- 
 gion and never attack it. Not to speak of religion is 
 in America a question of etiquette, like taking off 
 one's hat to a lady, or not using the fingers in eat- 
 ing one's food. All this, I hasten to say, is not a 
 bad thing. I think it was the great pagan Sten- 
 dhal who could never go to Rome without feeling 
 himself become a Catholic? It is a somewhat anal- 
 ogous case. An avowed free thinker in Europe 
 will conceal his flag in America, without hypocrisy, 
 and simply out of respect for social order. Every- 
 thing in that country is so different in that respect 
 from European countries, — the smooth and de- 
 termined face of the man of business, the matron 
 with the bearing of a queen, the laborer with bold 
 and open eye who seems always ready for a fight, 
 the indifferent and provoking shop-girl, the preco- 
 ciously cunning bootblack or the " artful dodger " 
 newsboy — everything in this country of aspiring 
 " climbers," even to the sumptuous palaces, the inso- 
 
 themselves to the liberal professions (except law and medicine) is 
 infinitely small; in fact they are the exception. Almost all are des- 
 tined to engage in commerce or manufacturing ; and a conscientious 
 professor cannot forget that the ideas laid before them are not to 
 remain ideas, but will pass into the moral and social life of the 
 nation. 
 
132 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 lent automobiles, and the mendacious advertise- 
 ments, says : "If God did not exist it would be 
 necessary to invent him ! " 
 
 On the other hand it is in this very America that 
 one hears repeated high and low and everywhere 
 that dogmas are of no account and will in time dis- 
 appear; in other words, that religion is dying out 
 and that morality alone will remain. Beware of be- 
 lieving it. Or at any rate let us make a distinction. 
 The philosophers have generally believed they would 
 be lost if they explained the religious manifestations 
 of men otherwise than by a unique principle (either 
 fear, or the need of perfecting oneself, or the desire 
 of happiness, or the necessity of a first cause, or 
 simply something impalpable they call religious sen- 
 timent). But this single principle is not at all in- 
 dispensable. Very different causes produce effects 
 very similar in appearance or even in reality. One 
 man may study jurisprudence and practice law in 
 order to defend the weak, another for the purpose 
 of despoiling them, a third for the simple pleasure 
 of disentangling complex cases; and sometimes 
 more than one of these causes may be operant at the 
 same time. So it is with religion. Some are led 
 to it by pure speculation; their understanding calls 
 for a first cause of the world, and they call it God. 
 Others are led to religion by their experience of 
 the practical life, and either through interest seek 
 in it the satisfaction of their desire for happiness, 
 or through disinterestedness are anxious to see some 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 133 
 
 day the injustice of destiny atoned for in heaven. 
 Others see in the fear of God a powerful agent of 
 civiHzation, a moral restraint ; and so on. Although 
 we must certainly admit that these different ele- 
 ments very often exist simultaneously and thus on 
 occasion mutually re-enforce each other, yet they 
 often exist separately; and being different in their 
 origin they remain different in their practical opera- 
 tion. It is always perfectly possible, in fact, legiti- 
 mate, to analyze, and consider each one by itself. 
 I would by no means ignore the purely psychological 
 or intellectual elements in the formation of the reli- 
 gious sentiment (I defended their human and so 
 probably indestructible character in an article — 
 which in truth seems to me to-day less clear and 
 precise than I could wish — in the Revue chretienne, 
 November, 1903, Religion in Society in the United 
 States) ; but just now we are dealing with the utili- 
 tarian element of religion. 
 
 And it is in keeping in mind those various sources 
 of the religious spirit, that we must examine the 
 question of the disappearance of dogmas. From the 
 pragmatic or utilitarian point of view, certain of 
 these (the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, 
 Transsubstantiation) are not essential; and if we 
 were only speaking of these perhaps we should not 
 go wrong, as M. Bargy says in his conscientious 
 work. Religion in Society in the United States, if 
 we did not attach the same importance to them as 
 formerly. Yet to infer from these few mystic 
 
134 
 
 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 dogmas that all dogmas are of a secondary charac- 
 ter in the eyes of American Christians, and are in 
 process of disappearance, would be a gross error. 
 The social utility of religion is not yet a thing of 
 the past. In order that religion as a moral restraint 
 shall respond to what is expected of it certain formal 
 dogmas are indispensable, such as the judgment, im- 
 mortality, paradise, and a place of expiation (the 
 last, however, not absolutely requisite). You have 
 only to lay a finger on those dogmas that affirm the 
 fundamental dogma of God as lord of the world, 
 in whose sight men are held responsible for their 
 keeping of the ten commandments, and you will find 
 that a clamorous protest, as if from one voice, will 
 arise from every quarter of the great continent to 
 excommunicate and anathematize you. 
 
 Some others have tried to show that dogmas were 
 destined to disappear by resting their argument 
 upon the development of a certain kind of modern 
 theology and have affirmed — to use the words of 
 Edouard Rod in his book on Rousseau — that, 
 " from the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard 
 Vicar up to the Sketch of a Philosophy of Religion 
 by the eminent dean of the Faculty of Theology in 
 Paris (M. Sabatier), God has finally been evapo- 
 rated like an incense-wafer that leaves behind it a 
 little perfume and a great deal of smoke." But 
 America is not a country of speculation and theories. 
 In fact, if the people had to choose between utilita- 
 rian dogmas, mingled with dogmas purely specula- 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 135 
 
 tive, and the rejection of all dogmas without excep- 
 tion, the first alternative would indisputably win the 
 day for a long time yet. Only get men to compre- 
 hend — and it would not be a difficult thing to do — 
 that, theology once laid on the shelf with metaphysi- 
 cal discussions, religion would then have to be satis- 
 fied with the God of the deists or the pantheists 
 (that is to say, a God absolutely apart from the 
 world, or an impersonal God), and such a religion 
 would be repulsed with as much horror as the crass- 
 est materialism. For, to give up theism, the doc- 
 trine of a personal deity keeping watch over the 
 acts of men would be, from the moral point of view, 
 to abandon everything. Hence, in order not to be 
 deprived of theism men will often retain more the- 
 ology than is necessary for their practical purposes. 
 Do the facts confirm our theories? Absolutely. 
 Consider for a moment sectarianism in America, 
 which, far from showing a tendency to disappear, 
 resists stubbornly the repeated and constant efforts 
 of those who see in it a source of weakness for the 
 church. And it is clear that it is a weakness. If 
 then people can't make up their minds to yield on 
 this point of dogma, it is because, after all, they 
 cling to dogma. Let me be permitted to cite at this 
 point a few passages from my article in the Revue 
 chretienne just referred to, written in answer to the 
 book of M. Bargy: 
 
 " If it were as M. Bargy understands to be true, 
 that doctrine were a * dead weight * in the church, then 
 
136 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 the sect most indifferent to dogma, the Unitarian, 
 ought to make a good many recruits from year to year, 
 and those in which the creed is important ought to lose 
 them. But in reaHty just the opposite is true. Uni- 
 tarianism remains stationary, while Episcopalianism, 
 and especially Catholicism, are ever gaining. It may 
 be that Unitarianism is per se superior; but at all 
 events the phenomena that I have just recalled to the 
 minds of my readers (and which are often with good 
 reason recalled) show that the great majority of Ameri- 
 can Christians do not feel inclined in that direction ; 
 they refuse to take the last step; they feel that they 
 ought not to do so"^ (p 364). 
 
 Mention should be made also of the failure of 
 the " Societies for Ethical Culture " in America. 
 " They represent still better the ideal that M. Bargy 
 attributes to Americans. And yet during the thirty 
 
 ^ This fact of the numerical insignificance of "Unitarian" con- 
 gregations gave rise to an interesting discussion during the first months 
 of the year 1908. Inasmuch as one clergyman had sought the cause 
 of this in the lack of interest on the part of said congregations in tem- 
 poral things, another took the opposite side. Examining the sub- 
 ject on its ground merits he developed the idea, in the New York 
 Sun, that it is rather their indifference to dogma that injures Unitari- 
 ans, — a thing that has often happened to other churches in America. 
 He then expresses in theological terms what I have just stated in 
 philosophical terms, saying among other things that "to insist upon 
 works of human welfare as the motive for being of a religious body 
 seems to us too superficial greatly to concern us. ... It is to reverse 
 the true order of cause and effect. . . . When the minds of men are 
 penetrated with a belief in the reality of a divine order in the world, 
 when unselfishness and mutual help are seen to be obligatory because 
 men are children of the one Father and to be our contribution to 
 that divine order which moves through the world, then do all works 
 of humanitarianism proceed from a permanently operating cause." 
 (Quoted from The Literary Digest, April 4, 1908.) 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 137 
 
 years since they were founded, after a brief period 
 of prosperity following upon the formation of each 
 society, they have remained almost absolutely sta- 
 tionary " (p. 365). The founder of these societies 
 which preach the suppression of religious dogma, 
 Professor Felix Adler, is a Jew, a noble and broad- 
 minded man, but who has followers of the same race 
 who would not be sorry if they could neutralize re- 
 ligion entirely. The other fellow-theorists of Pro- 
 fessor Adler are either semi-cultivated men who like 
 to think themselves superior to the crowd, or else 
 persons of excellent character, but without practical 
 good sense, believing, in all simplicity of heart, in 
 the natural goodness of man. There are, besides, a 
 few professors who make a parade of agnosticism 
 and who are dreamers after all, — positivists in their 
 thinking, dreamers in practical life, precisely the 
 opposite of the status of those around them. The 
 x\merican people are too wary to allow themselves to 
 be caught by this Utopia of morality stripped of all 
 accompaniment and support and without other sanc- 
 tion than the conscience. Some have been pleased to 
 say that it is not the fashion to belong to '* eth- 
 ical societies," and that in America etiquette rules. 
 This is true. Yet the fashion undoubtedly has a 
 reason-for-being, good or bad; a cause which I 
 pointed out above, namely, that morality vanishes 
 without dogmatic religion. We may further note 
 the curious attitude that M. Bargy is obliged to take 
 to explain the role that the Bible continues to play in 
 
138 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 American churches and which seems to him so pro- 
 digious an anachronism. The biblical critic has re- 
 ceived a good welcome, it is true (he says), and yet 
 the holy volume retains all its influence. How to 
 understand that ? " People sacrificed a part to save 
 the whole," we read, by way of explanation (on 
 page 2y8), " It was like the retreat of an army in 
 covering which all the members fall one by one. It 
 arrives at last at an inaccessible place of refuge ; the 
 army has no more men, but it is safe. Little by little 
 parts of the Bible were given up ; one by one, with- 
 out counting, they were abandoned to the scientists, 
 but the sanctity of the whole was maintained." And 
 this also on page 279 : " Every one works out the 
 inner meaning of the Bible for himself, and people 
 now only worship in common the letter thereof. 
 It is no longer anything more than a symbol. Yet 
 the worship of one and the same symbol is a bond 
 of union. In an army the flag excites as many 
 different ideas as there are minds. There is no 
 orthodox comment on the flag ; it is only an emblem, 
 and that is its strong point, is what makes it such a 
 source of power." In common on all this I wrote in 
 the Revue just referred to : '' It is almost a piece 
 of legerdemain. What! where (I ask again) is that 
 practical American spirit? When the parts are 
 valueless, the whole, you maintain, is yet worth 
 something? When the soldiers are dead, the army 
 still exists? You take as a symbol a document the 
 worthlessness of which you permit to be asserted 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 139 
 
 and maintained? No; there is something in this 
 just as in the case of the existence of sectarianism 
 . . . and of Unitarianism, and of the Societies of 
 ethical culture . . . something that the conception 
 of the facts by M. Bargy does not explain" (p. 366). 
 
 Events have recently taken place in America as 
 if on purpose to show how the foregoing observa- 
 tions by the writer are founded on reality. As early 
 as the close of the year 1906 premonitory indications 
 of a great panic were discerned. Now immediately 
 before the depression in values, in February, 1907, 
 there appeared in the Wall Street Journal, of New 
 York, a financial paper, certain editorial remarks in 
 which the editor-in-chief, Sereno S. Pratt, discussed 
 with keen accuracy the influence of religion on busi- 
 ness. A decline in religious faith, affirms Mr. Pratt, 
 " affects the basic conditions of civilization," and 
 among other things " becomes a factor in the finan- 
 cial market " ; " changes the standards and affects 
 the values of things that are bought and sold," and 
 " concerns the immediate interests of those who 
 never had such a faith almost as much as it does the 
 lives of those who have had their faith and lost it." 
 It would be well worth while for a commission of 
 experts, named by the government, to study at close 
 range what is the precise influence of a decline in 
 faith in the United States upon such phenomena in 
 the financial world and such social unrest as we 
 have witnessed during the past few months. It is 
 a fact that every one will admit, whatever his own 
 
I40 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 personal ideas on religion, that " there is no one 
 who would not prefer to do business with a person 
 who really believes in a future life." Consequently, 
 if the world holds fewer men of such faith, that is 
 going to make a great difference in the way business 
 is conducted. It is impossible to judge consciences, 
 continues Mr. Pratt; we must confine ourselves to 
 external indications. Now, the churches are not 
 as full as formerly on a Sunday; family worship 
 becomes rarer; the weekly day of rest is less ob- 
 served, and people give themselves up more to 
 worldly enjoyments and labor, young people have 
 less and less serious knowledge of the Bible ; finally, 
 the churches have made a failure of their efforts 
 to win the confidence of the laboring people. If 
 these are true indications of a decline of faith 
 in the United States, " then, indeed, there is no 
 more important problem before us (it should 
 not be forgotten that Pratt was addressing the 
 world of finance) than that of either discover- 
 ing some adequate substitute for faith, or taking 
 immediate steps to check a development that has 
 within it the seeds of a national disaster." Two 
 measures might be proposed to replace the factor of 
 faith in the business world, — the socialism of Karl 
 Marx, or the concentration of finances (that is to 
 say, the trust pushed to its last limits by a man ca- 
 pable of directing all). Discussing these two alter- 
 natives, Mr. Pratt reaches the conclusion that neither 
 the one nor the other is the remedy adequate to the 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 141 
 
 ill. His own idea is couched in the following 
 language : 
 
 " The supreme need of the hour is not elastic cur- 
 rency or sounder banking, or better protection against 
 panics, or bigger names, or more equitable tariffs, but 
 a revival of faith, a return to a morality which recog- 
 nizes a base in religion and the establishment of a 
 workable and working theory of life that view man as 
 something more than a mere lump of matter." 
 
 There indeed you have expressed with admirable 
 clearness and freedom the opinion of the solid class 
 upon which rests the powerful American civilization. 
 In ordinary times people may drop hints and mask 
 their thought with rhetoric. In the hour of danger 
 every misunderstanding is a crime, and at the risk 
 of shocking certain over-delicate ears it is necessary 
 to speak freely. 
 
 Of this same time, when the storm was felt to be 
 approaching, let me cite another characteristic occur- 
 rence, — probably one out of a thousand that chance 
 brought to my knowledge. There is in Wall Street, 
 New York, a stockbroker's ofHce, at the head of 
 which is a lady named Mrs. Gailord. She prefaces 
 her daily work every morning by a prayer in the 
 rooms of her ofifice. At the beginning of the year 
 1907 she determined to do more : she arranged with 
 a clergyman to come every Wednesday to preside 
 over a religious service at her place of business. She 
 asked the great financiers, her neighbors, with whose 
 religious prepossessions she was acquainted (the 
 
142 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 Rockefellers, the Pierpont Morgans, the Schiffs) to 
 co-operate in the work. Her assistants and guests 
 could thus pass directly from the house of God to 
 the temple of Mammon, and that was regarded as 
 quite natural.^ 
 
 It was at this time, also, that the proposal was 
 again put forth to create a new interest in the Bible 
 by putting the sacred volume on the program of 
 literary courses. It might seem as if the putting of 
 the Bible on the same footing as C haucer, Shake- 
 speare, and Milton would be to lower it to the level 
 of a purely human work, deprive it of prestige in- 
 stead of giving it prestige. But that depends upon 
 the atmosphere or environment, it seems; and cer- 
 tainly Professor Phelps, and those who had previ- 
 ously broached the same idea, had no other object 
 than to cause the Bible to be more widely read, in 
 order to instil its moral teachings into the minds 
 of the scholars at the schools and universities. 
 
 People recovered, however, from this first emo- 
 tion, — the great crisis was not to come before 
 November, — but it was felt that the social and 
 
 * The author did not hear farther from this work. But whether 
 it succeeded or not is of little consequence after all. The interesting 
 thing is that some one proposed it. Let me add, in order to be at 
 the same time exact and conscientious, that Mrs. Gailord seemed to 
 have also in view another object, which she thus expressed: "There 
 are a good many women who, as a result of foolish speculation or the 
 loss of money, find themselves in a state of mind in which a minister 
 would be of the greatest help. I would therefore add to the times of 
 regular services moments when the clergyman would afiford spiritual 
 consultations. But the counsel it is proposed to offer at those special 
 times is to be personal, not business, counsel." 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 143 
 
 financial equilibrium was in an unstable condition; 
 and the ecclesiastical authorities were as much 
 occupied with the menacing danger as were bank 
 directors and politicians. At the time of church fes- 
 tivals, especially during Lent, there are churches or 
 halls in which, outside of office hours, religious ser- 
 vices for business men are held. I remember having 
 seen on a church door in the neighborhood of Wall 
 Street during Easter week this notice : " Quick Ser- 
 vice for Business Men " — a pendant of " Quick 
 Luncheon for Business Men." In 1906 they had 
 the idea of establishing in New York regular open- 
 air noon meetings, during the pleasant season, for 
 the same public. There were fifteen hundred pub- 
 lic services held, the number of persons present 
 being estimated at four hundred sixty-two thou- 
 sand. The meetings were conducted at ten different 
 places simultaneously, the most important being 
 those in the *' down-town " region. In 1907 the 
 work was resumed with more ardor, on account of 
 the precarious state of business and to serve as a 
 counteraction to the attempts at illegitimate specu- 
 lation. Thirty thousand dollars were subscribed 
 by the different religious congregations, well-known 
 ministers were secured, sometimes from a distance, 
 who, at the mid-day luncheon hour, in the heart of 
 summer and under the torrid sun of New York City, 
 preached with bared head to a mixed audience of 
 laborers and clerks, bankers and politicians. En- 
 thusiastic persons wrote, " The days of Whitfield 
 
144 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 and Wesley are here again." The speakers stood 
 on the steps of City Hall, or a few blocks farther 
 down in Wall Street itself. Sometimes they spoke 
 mounted on an office stool, or standing up in an 
 automobile. They would take for their text such 
 words as " the wages of sin is death." The success 
 of these meetings was disputed. But at any rate 
 they took place, and their organizers found in them 
 a means of inoculating the sense of responsibility 
 in the minds of those who, by risky transactions, 
 were in the way of disturbing the financial equili- 
 brium. This is the important thing for us to know. 
 In the autumn came the panic, and phenomena 
 of this kind multiplied. It was noticeable, for ex- 
 ample, that one of the great manufacturers of the 
 United States put himself at the head of a move- 
 ment, nor for converting — that was not necessary 
 — but for rendering more intense the religious life 
 of Fifth Avenue, the street, as every one knows, 
 that is lined with the *' brown-stone fronts " and 
 costly palaces of the kings of American finance. 
 Mr. Converse, president of the great Baldwin Loco- 
 motive Works of Philadelphia, is himself a Pres- 
 byterian, and his initiative in this matter was hailed 
 as " something that had long been wanted." Church 
 members don't go to church as they ought to in 
 order to set an example of Christian living — this 
 was the chief point insisted on. " When an estab- 
 lishment like that " (said Mr. Converse, speaking 
 of the sumptuous Presbyterian Church of Fifth 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 145 
 
 Avenue), " representing millions of dollars, is used 
 only two or three times a week would it not be a just 
 criticism that the Master makes in saying that this 
 church is not doing what it can for His glory!" 
 Nobody was complaining of immoral lives, in the 
 sense in which this phrase is usually understood, 
 nor of lack of charity, — American millionaires 
 amply acquit themselves of their obligations toward 
 the communities in which they make their money, — 
 but of dishonest speculations, dirty commercial 
 tricks, abuses of confidences. Here is where a 
 religious restraint or check is necessary. '* I con- 
 sider this fact (said Mr. Converse again), that the 
 Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church of Nevr York is 
 undertaking a series of evangelist meetings, to be 
 the most important kind of a movement for the 
 sending out of a kind of appeal to the churches, 
 an appeal which is to-day especially necessary." 
 " A kind of appeal " ; it is not necessary for him 
 to specify what kind. " To-day " ; that is, at this 
 time of financial paralysis and industrial crisis.^ 
 
 Read the American journals of that time. Every- 
 where the same refrain : " Our churches are de- 
 serted, we must fill them " ; " church members are 
 becoming formalists, their zeal must be rekindled " ; 
 " our sincere Christians are losing themselves in 
 theological discussions in place of living the Chris- 
 tian life " ; " religion is the salvation of society," 
 
 * It is the same Mr. Converse who went to the theological seminary 
 of Princeton to urge the students to cultivate pulpit eloquence. 
 
 10 
 
146 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 etc., etc. At the very moment in which I am writ- 
 ing these lines, in Philadelphia, a city of over a mil- 
 lion and a half of inhabitants, a formidable cam- 
 paign of revivalist meetings is under way. Every 
 day for six weeks, in twenty-one churches, people 
 have been ceaselessly at work transacting " the 
 King's Business." Three hundred congregations 
 hold union meetings, and seventy-five evangelists 
 and preachers are assisted by five thousand ** per- 
 sonal workers " ; that is to say, persons who take 
 upon them to go and talk privately with those who 
 rise at the close of the service to declare their will- 
 ingness to march under the banner of Christ. There 
 are two thousand choir members assigned every 
 evening to the different churches. Certain evangel- 
 ists even enter the restaurants (with a portable 
 church organ), for the purposes of getting signa- 
 tures and saving souls. A special committee makes 
 it its work to send messengers from door to door to 
 ask people to join in the great movement. These 
 " bell-pullers " must visit somewhere near twenty- 
 five thousand houses in the great " city of homes." 
 And when Philadelphia is conquered they will con- 
 quer other cities. Please note that in all this there 
 is no trace of fanaticism or mysticism. It is simply 
 due to the financial panic. The moment seems 
 favorable. These evangelists of Philadelphia are 
 putting into practice, after the crisis has passed, the 
 counsels which the editor of the Wall Street Jour- 
 nal gave some time ago, and of which I have given 
 some account. 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 147 
 
 The country recovered rapidly from the panic, 
 and so to some extent these efforts went to nothing. 
 But let there come a permanent crisis, as predicted 
 by some, and it is easy to see that if it does not end 
 in a social revolution, it will be the signal for a pro- 
 found religious revival. 
 
 I have selected for a somewhat detailed demon- 
 stration the most striking manifestation of the prag- 
 matic spirit. But it is evident that it is the same 
 in other things, and that in the field of private mo- 
 rality as well as in the domain of business, religion 
 acting as a moral restraint — and always apart from 
 the satisfaction of the feelings connected with it — 
 is of the highest importance. 
 
 Voltaire, with his superb common sense, long 
 ago saw this, and admirably expressed it. Although 
 he was the great apostle of tolerance, he also showed 
 that an atheist " who was a violent and powerful 
 reasoner would be as deadly a scourge as a sangui- 
 nary bigot" {Treatise on Tolerance). At the be- 
 ginning of the nineteenth century Balzac took up 
 the same theme again and laid urgent stress on it. 
 For instance, he says : " Christianity, and especially 
 Catholic Christianity, forming, as I have said, in 
 Le Medecin de Campagne, a complete system for 
 the repression of the evil tendencies of men, is the 
 most important element of social order." (Preface 
 to the Comedie Hiimaine, p. 7.) And fifty years 
 later, Taine for his part penned his famous demon- 
 
148 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 stration that every time that the influence of reli- 
 gion decreases, as in the time of the Renaissance 
 and during the eighteenth century, man becomes 
 especially debauched and cruel. " We can now 
 estimate the value of the contribution of Christi- 
 anity to our modern societies, what it gives us in the 
 way of chastity, gentleness, and humanitarianism ; 
 what it secures among us in the way of honesty, 
 good faith, and justice. Neither philosophic reason, 
 nor artistic and literary culture, nor even the insti- 
 tution of feudal, military, and chivalric honor, no 
 administration, no government, can take its place 
 or do its work. Whether vested in Greek, Catholic, 
 or Protestant wrapping, Christianity still furnishes 
 for four hundred millions of human beings the 
 broad vans by which alone man can lift himself 
 above himself, above his grovelling life, and beyond 
 the limits of his narrow horizon, through patience, 
 resignation, and hope, on and up into serenest skies ; 
 lift himself higher even than temperance, purity, 
 and goodness, into the realm of consecration 
 and sacrifice. It alone can hold us back in our 
 fatal downward course, apply the brakes to check 
 the insensible backsliding by which, incessantly and 
 with all its natural weight of imperfection, our race 
 retrogrades toward its baser and lowest instincts. 
 The old gospel is still to-day the best aid to the 
 social instinct." 
 
 At the beginning of the twentieth century, now 
 that democracy has had still more time to be tested, 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 149 
 
 we must still echo this sentiment. To-day more 
 than ever, infinitely more, are there reasons for 
 feeling uneasy as to the effect of free thought on 
 the masses, and as to the effect of an education 
 necessarily superficial, that is to say, one that does 
 not sink deep enough to really do good, but yet 
 goes far enough to work disaster. And if we do 
 more than merely register facts and instances with- 
 out comment, we find that, nine times out of ten, 
 it is the decline in the religious faith that is stated 
 (and rightly stated) to be the cause of the decline 
 in morality; I have in mind such things as the in- 
 increase of divorces, the lessening birth-rate, and 
 drunkenness. I could cite hundreds of examples 
 of this. Here is one that happens to be before my 
 eyes now. A certain Mr. Tasker, after having 
 drawn a lamentable picture (in Zion's Herald, of 
 Boston, January, 1908) of the State of New Hamp- 
 shire, lays the blame, at its close, on: 
 
 " the encroaching spirit of irreligion. The non-church- 
 going element increases. In the thirty-seven localities 
 of which we have spoken the religious census gives 
 the following results: out of a population of about 
 thirty-two thousand souls, eight thousand, say a quar- 
 ter, affirm that they have no affiliation with the church, 
 and eighteen thousand, more than half, have never 
 been baptized. . . . The church ought to be the centre 
 of moral and spiritual life ; but it is a fact that, in many 
 of our communities, the church is a decreasing influ- 
 ence in the lives of the people. Congregations are 
 
ISO 
 
 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 small ; interest in the church is but slender, and those 
 who are outside look on it with contempt." 
 
 And here is an extract from a New York period- 
 ical, The Examiner, apropos of the increase in the 
 number of suicides which took on the proportion 
 of an epidemic, owing to the financial panic: 
 
 " It may be due to various causes : living at a low 
 moral level, greed of gain, and general indifference 
 to religious things. Men as a rule no longer pay any 
 attention to God or their fellowmen. The law of God 
 no longer has any terrors for them. It is no longer ' a 
 terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' 
 The desires of the world must be gratified, must be 
 indulgently yielded to and the superior gifts of God 
 ignored. . . . Many scoff at the rights of their brother 
 men, treat them unjustly, crush them under foot. In 
 the same way they scoff at God. . . . They fear noth- 
 ing and have become indifferent to the hereafter. They 
 live like the beasts and die as if believing death to be 
 the end of all." 
 
 It is interesting to see those who profess only 
 the morality of laymen turning like the preachers 
 against unmoral literature and against a stage with 
 advanced ideas. While forbearing to appeal in this 
 matter to religion as a restraining force, they go so 
 far as to appeal — not to the law ; they have n't the 
 courage to go so far as that, but — to public opin- 
 ion to react against license of thought. I heard 
 Professor Felix Adler, the founder of ethical socie- 
 ties, make such a recommendation in a formal lecture 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 151 
 
 in Philadelphia. But here is the cul-de-sac in which 
 one is caught in an unwise desire to " emancipate " 
 the minds of the masses! One takes away their 
 religion as being a superstition, but runs up against 
 their incapacity to do without it. One directs a 
 flood of light upon religion to cause it to vanish, 
 but one does not dare throw light on social prob- 
 lems as they present themselves to mediocre-minded 
 people, once religious sanction has been removed. 
 If it were necessary to choose, the system of the 
 church would seem to be infinitely wiser. I have 
 treated this aspect of the subject — independently, 
 however, of any discussion of pragmatism — in 
 The International Journal of Ethics, July, 1906, 
 under the head of Literature and the Moral Code, 
 and shall recur to it farther on.^ 
 
 This long introduction was necessary in order 
 to make those who have not lived in America com- 
 prehend how pragmatism reflects this second phase 
 of modern thought, as it had reflected the popular 
 conception of life considered from the point of view 
 of action, of struggle for success. 
 
 Undoubtedly we have to interpret pragmatism 
 and read between the lines, and we may do so by 
 recalling these words of Kant apropos of Plato : 
 
 " I observe that it is not at all extraordinary, both in 
 oral discussion and in writing, that, by comparison of 
 
 * The article from the International Journal of Ethics is also re- 
 produced in Appendix B. 
 
152 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 the thoughts an author expresses, one can understand 
 him better than he understands himself ; for he has not 
 sufficiently defined his idea, and for that reason he 
 sometimes speaks, and even sometimes thinks, the very 
 opposite of v^hat he means ; i. e., contrary to the end 
 he has in view." {Pure Reason, ed. 1791, p. 370.) 
 
 I further remark that the pragmatist philosophers^ 
 when they approach questions of first principles, 
 always- maintain a certain reserve, which does not 
 lack dignity, while handling their subject, at the 
 same time making a strong effort not to lose contact 
 with solid reality. But it is our right and our duty 
 to hale out into the broad daylight the premises of 
 their assertions. In fine it will not be superfluous to 
 recall that the principal among them, and, to tell the 
 truth, the man who fears least the contact wnth con- 
 crete reality has a fine confidence in the nobleness 
 of human nature. The religion he claims for his 
 personal pragmatism, and from which he asks sanc- 
 tion for his ideas, is an optimistic religion (he, him- 
 self, in one of his essays, calls pessimism " a reli- 
 gious disease "), and he who holds to this optimism 
 insists constantly upon the recompense of the good 
 and the courageous, while he relegates to the back- 
 ground and even affects to ignore, a punishment for 
 the base and undeserving. But the one implies the 
 other. As we have seen elsewhere, it is in vain for 
 Professor James to thunder against a punitive God. 
 If God really watches over the moral order of the 
 world, he must also punish or at least correct, the 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 153 
 
 unjust; or, if not correct them, at least allow them 
 to bear the consequences of their acts. " God 's in 
 his heaven ; all 's right with the world ! That 's the 
 real heart of your theology, and for that you need 
 no rationalist definitions." (Pragmatism, p. 122.) 
 There are other matters, however, on which it is 
 preferable not to speak too loud for other motives 
 than that dignified reserve of which I spoke just 
 now. Professor James knows very well that few 
 true philosophers would overtly consent to estimate 
 the truth of an idea by its moral consequences. Now 
 it is always useless to plant a blow between the eyes 
 of very strong convictions (or call them prejudices 
 if you will) ; and consequently it would not be very 
 clever for him to insist too ostensibly upon this 
 matter of sanction on the part of religion. Yet the 
 idea, though often veiled, is there, and forms the 
 rock-foundation of William James's writings. We 
 must conciliate (he says incessantly) and satisfy both 
 the empirical proclivities of man and his religious 
 proclivities. Which means : we must satisfy his need 
 of action and his need of knowing that his actions 
 (and especially those of others) are watched over 
 by a superior power. " Never," he says, " were as 
 many men of a decidedly empirical proclivity in ex- 
 istence as there are at the present day. Our chil- 
 dren, one may say, are almost bom scientific. But 
 our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all 
 religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our 
 scientific temper is devout. , . , A man wants 
 
154 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 facts; he wants science; but he also wants a reli- 
 gion." (Pragmatism, pp. 14, 15.) And pragma- 
 tism recommends itself for the very reason that it 
 " may be a happy harmonizer of empirical ways of 
 thinking with the more religious demands of human 
 beings." (Pragmatism, p. 69.) 
 
 Judging by the terms employed, one could easily 
 believe the matters in hand here are sublime sci- 
 ence, and religious needs purely relating to the feel- 
 ings and sentiments. But no ; these " empirical 
 proclivities " are, above all, proclivities for the prac- 
 tical life wholly independent of disinterested philos- 
 ophy. And if Professor James really intends to 
 include in his " religious needs " sentimental religion 
 as well as utilitarian religion, yet in reality, prag- 
 matically, it is the latter that is important above all 
 else. It is this which is frankly aimed at in the 
 ulterior developments of the author's thought — al- 
 though always in such a way as not to offend our 
 ears by a utilitarianism too rude. Professor James 
 himself — though perhaps without ever having come 
 to a formal understanding with himself on this point 
 — makes a perfect distinction between religion in 
 general and " the religious needs " in the sense of 
 the need of an ethical sanction. It is this latter con- 
 ception which is alone on the tapis in the important 
 discussion of his third lecture. He is there compar- 
 ing materialism and spiritualism : " And first of all 
 I call your attention to a curious fact. It makes not 
 a single jot of difference so far as the past of the 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA iSS 
 
 world goes, whether we deem it to have been the 
 work of matter or whether we think a divine spirit 
 was its author " (p. 96). We may suppose that the 
 two hypotheses, materiahst and spiritualist, both one 
 and the other give an equally satisfactory account of 
 what is, and hence intellectually, " the two theories, 
 in spite of their different sounding names, mean 
 exactly the same thing, and the dispute is purely 
 verbal" (p. 97). Is it a God or atoms? "The 
 God, if there, has been doing just what atoms could 
 do . . . and earning such gratitude as is due to 
 atoms and no more" (p. 99). But let us state the 
 pragmatic question, "What difference would it make 
 now whether the world be the product of matter or 
 of spirit? " then " the alternative of materialism or 
 theism is intensely practical" (p. loi). Here is 
 the whole thing in a nutshell : " Materialism means 
 simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, 
 and the cutting off of ultimate hopes; spiritualism 
 means the affirmation of an eternal moral order and 
 the letting loose of hope. Surely here is an issue 
 genuine enough, for any one who feels it; and, as 
 long as men are men, it will yield matter for a seri- 
 ous philosophic debate" (p. 107). "This need of 
 an eternal moral order is one of the deepest needs 
 of our breast. And those poets, like Dante and 
 Wordsworth, who live on the conviction of such 
 an order, owe to that fact the extraordinary tonic 
 and consoling power of their verse," etc., etc. But 
 this is deviation from philosophic debate into the 
 field of eloquence. 
 
IS6 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 On the same principle James ignores every philo- 
 sophic doctrine, which, without being materialistic, 
 does not recognize a personal God, — deism, pan- 
 theism, which ''disdain empiricism's needs" (p. 72). 
 And even the God of certain contemporary theistic 
 writers " lives on as purely abstract heights as does 
 the Absolute (of the pantheists) " (p. 19). The 
 barbarous God of former times, conceived under the 
 form of a powerful monarch, was not very inspir- 
 ing, although it at least " kept some touch with con- 
 crete realities" (p. 70). And a little farther on: 
 "If theological ideas prove to have a value for con- 
 crete life they will be true, for pragmatism, in the 
 sense of being good for so much" (p. y2>)y ^^^ 
 pragmatism " will take a God who lives in the very 
 dirt of private fact — if that should seem a likely 
 place to find him" (p. 80). God (he had already 
 said in The Will to Believe) " must be conceived 
 under the form of a mental personality" (p. 122).^ 
 
 Now I ask whether this is not the very echo of 
 the convictions expressed by Sereno Pratt, by Mrs. 
 Gailord, by Mr. Converse, and by the preachers of 
 Wall Street? 
 
 As soon as he feels germinating within him the 
 idea of a philosophy of pragmatism, William James 
 
 * I am pleased to note that the pragmatists themselves have laid 
 stress upon the solicitude for religious utilitarianism in Professor 
 James's writings. Professor Dewey, in the article cited from the 
 Journal of Philosophy, Feb. 13, 1908, while pointing out that, with 
 the author of Pragmatism, the moral worth of an idea frequently 
 suflSces to establish its truth adds, " This is especially the case when 
 it is a question of theological ideas " (p. 93). 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 157 
 
 betrays his conviction that the value of religion in 
 the world is to be guaged by its utilitarian side. Be- 
 lief is measured by action, he says in his essay The 
 Will to Believe, and therefore, " Since belief is meas- 
 ured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion 
 to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we 
 should if we did believe it to be true. The whole 
 defense of religions faith hinges upon action. If 
 the action required or inspired by the religious hy- 
 pothesis is in no way different from that dictated 
 by the naturalistic hypothesis, then religious faith 
 is a pure superfluity, better pruned away, and contro- 
 versy about its legitimacy is a piece of idle trifling, 
 unworthy of serious minds " (pp. 29, 30). He adds 
 that, in default of empirical proof, he is willing to 
 believe the religious hypothesis simply through con- 
 trasting it with the naturalistic hypothesis ; and this 
 preference he justifies by words like these : " Refuse 
 to believe, and you shall indeed be right, for you 
 shall irretrievably perish. But believe, and again 
 you shall be right, for you shall save yourself* 
 (p. 59). The only difference is that it is all to your 
 advantage to believe. Elsewhere in the same vol- 
 ume, in reply to the dictum that *' reflex action and 
 all that follows from it give the coup de grace to 
 the superstition of God," he declares, " that a God, 
 whether existent or not, is at all events the kind of 
 being which, if he did exist, would form the most 
 adequate possible object for minds framed like our 
 own to conceive as lying at the root of the universe " 
 
158 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 (p. 115). (The italics are mine.) And, finally, 
 I will permit myself to quote one more passage : 
 
 " Just as within the limits of theism some kinds are 
 surviving others by reason of their greater practical 
 rationality; so theism itself, by reason of its practical 
 rationality, is certain to survive all lower creeds. Mate- 
 rialism and agnosticism, even were they true, could 
 never gain universal and popular acceptance, for they 
 both alike give a solution of things which is irrational 
 to the practical third of our nature and in which we 
 can never volitionally feel at home " (p. 126). 
 
 Are we to infer from this that "universal and 
 popular acceptance " is to be considered the crite- 
 rion of truth? I don't see how we could interpret 
 Professor James otherwise. 
 
 Yet certain persons considered that Professor 
 James was preaching a doctrine calculated to es- 
 trange people from religion and reproached him for 
 it. It is easy to see from what has just been said 
 how little foundation there is in that accusation; 
 nevertheless he was very sensitive to this criticism, 
 and devotes a whole chapter of his volume on Prag- 
 matism to showing its worthlessness. The reason 
 of the accusation lay in the circumstance that many 
 could have wished there had been more insistence 
 upon the character of the God of Justice, in the sense 
 of an avenging God, the punisher of the wicked. I 
 have already explained that this notion is not absent 
 from James's writings, but that he does not like to 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 159 
 
 emphasize this result of his theology; while exalt- 
 ing (as a result of his temperament and for the 
 sake of philosophic dignity) the positive side of 
 practical religion, — that is to say, while assuring 
 the good and the brave that their efforts are not 
 in vain and their probity unheeded, — he implies 
 the converse or negative side, the condemnation of 
 the wicked. But it is true that theoretically he 
 leaves open the question what idea pragmatism 
 ought to have of God : " Pragmatism has to post- 
 pone dogmatic answer, for we do not yet know cer- 
 tainly which type of religion is going to work best 
 in the long run " (p. 300). He affirms that he has 
 spoken for himself alone in the case of this particu- 
 lar problem.^ 
 
 We can deal more briefly with the topic of prag- 
 matism and religion elsewhere than in America. 
 I shall have to do little more than repeat what I said 
 apropos of pragmatism and the popular philosophy 
 of action. Especially in respect to other philoso- 
 phies the same motifs are in operation which give 
 its distinctive tint to the pragmatism of Mr. Schiller 
 compared with that of Professor James. In a word. 
 Professor James has a free field and writes with a 
 calmer nerve. The line of demarcation between a 
 scientist or university professor and a plain public 
 of cultivated people being scarcely perceptible in 
 
 * For passages of a pragmatic cast in his Varieties 0/ Religious 
 Experience, see pp. 15, 39, 327, 332, 377, 378, 443, 445- 
 
i6o ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 America, Professor James speaks to a people, with- 
 out concerning himself very much with the opinion 
 of professional philosophers.^ These, however, at- 
 tack him a good deal on points of detail ; but prag- 
 matism is not at all affected or injured by them. 
 And before the public, he continues his plan of not 
 contending but expounding or interpreting in lec- 
 tures and books; and his ideas are such as people 
 want to hear. In England a philosophic doctrine is 
 discussed first of all among philosophers or scien- 
 tists, and the verdict depends on these, not on the 
 public at large. Now there exists in England a 
 philosophy, already a century old, which in its posi- 
 tivism is the very antipodes of pragmatism. Among 
 its representatives are the followers of such men as 
 Mill, Huxley, and Spencer. It is they who must 
 be reckoned with, and it is against them that Mr. 
 Schiller wields his lance. If we examine pragma- 
 tism, Mr. Schiller says, in its religious aspect, " we 
 shall find that it has a most important bearing. 
 For in principle pragmatism overcomes the old an- 
 tithesis of faith and reason. It shows on the one 
 hand that faith must underlie all reason and per- 
 vade it, nay, that at bottom rationality itself is 
 the supremest postulate of faith. ... On the other 
 hand, it enables us to draw the line between a gen- 
 uine and a spurious faith." (Humanism, p. XIV.) 
 
 * Yet he does show some concern about it in a recent article in 
 the Philosophical Review (XVII, i). But it was almost superfluous, 
 for the success of pragmatism in America does not depend much on 
 the speculative thinkers. 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA i6i 
 
 Schiller adds that it is '' by chance " that pragma- 
 tism touches on this subject of the relations between 
 faith and reason. Yet this is doubtful; otherwise, 
 why this constant preoccupation with the subject 
 even in Mr. Schiller's own writings? In the first 
 " essay " of Humanism he devotes many pages to 
 it. In another essay (p. 62) he refutes Lotze by 
 taking the stand that the theory of monism " cannot 
 be equated with (the idea of) God"; and the idea 
 of an absolute God (instead of a personal God) 
 " aggravates the problem of freedom, of mutation, 
 and of evil." Again in Studies of Humanism he 
 has one of his most important essays devoted en- 
 tirely to Faith, Reason, and Religion. 
 
 We can equally surmise the importance of these 
 religious prepossessions in relation to pragmatism 
 by a discussion with Bradley cited by Schiller 
 (pp. 3, 4). Bradley cannot endure this confusion 
 between ethics and metaphysics : " Render the point 
 of view absolute and then consider what you have 
 done. You have not only become irrational but 
 you have broken the bonds that unite you with all 
 the great religions." The inverse is true for 
 Schiller; it is Bradley who ruins ethics in wanting 
 to make it independent of metaphysics ; does he not 
 say (p. 13), "our metaphysics must ... be quasi- 
 ethical?" 
 
 In its attitude toward theology, pragmatism in 
 England seems to hold a rather different position. 
 In America all theologians do not like this philos- 
 
 II 
 
i62 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 ophy which replaces their own. In their eyes 
 pragmatism borders on emancipated theology; they 
 have taxed it with impiety as we have seen. In 
 other words, pragmatists are really the allies of 
 the theologians, although the latter do not always 
 understand it so. In England, on the contrary, 
 where philosophy is far from being always well 
 disposed toward theology, the theologians are only 
 too happy to be able to call to their aid a William 
 James, author of a great empirical Psychology, and 
 yet a pragmatist, that is, a spiritualist. Mr. Schiller 
 is already one of them, a spiritualist, so the assist- 
 ance of Professor James is much more valuable. 
 Like men in danger of drowning they have shown 
 great alacrity in seizing the safety plank (as one of 
 them called it) thrown to them by the American psy- 
 chologist. Sometimes they have even been a little 
 false to him. Such was that champion of an aveng- 
 ing God I mentioned in a previous chapter who jus- 
 tified himself on the authority of pragmatism, in 
 supporting a doctrine of which James was not at all 
 solicitous to be the patron. This alliance between 
 theology and pragmatism in England (and upon 
 the European continent, too, for that matter) will 
 probably remind certain orthodox Americans of the 
 treaty recently concluded in their country between 
 the temperance societies and the beer brewers that 
 they might together wage war on the whiskey dis- 
 tillers. The world sometimes sees fraternizations 
 like that — all pragmatic. 
 
SOCIAL PHENOMENA 163 
 
 Let us then conclude this chapter by saying that 
 pragmatism is pre-eminently the product of a philo- 
 sophic temperament, to use Professor James's own 
 word. Indeed, it seems that his conception of 
 the history of philosophy as a series of systems 
 or methods constructed by different temperaments 
 applies particularly well to his own philosophy. It 
 is a curious thing, though, that he seems to be- 
 lieve that pragmatism, for its part, is destined to 
 escape the fate of other philosophies which have had 
 their day as being only accidental and personal. 
 Pragmatism (he says) " has come to stay " (p. 47). 
 This claim, at first sight, would scarcely seem to be 
 justifiable. Yet Professor James may be right to this 
 extent and in this sense, that a philosophy making 
 use of no other lamps and guiding stars than criteria 
 of a practical kind may come to be more and more 
 the only one that men will cultivate. In that case 
 it ought to be understood that the philosophy of 
 the crowd, or one adapted to the faculties of the 
 crowd, is far from being necessarily the true philo- 
 sophy; but there are certain indications in the his- 
 tory of philosophy which favor James's opinion — 
 with the reservation pointed out. There is, at the 
 same time, in the history of pragmatism — the 
 thing, not the word — a valuable proof of my argu- 
 ments that the idea of judging a theory by its moral 
 results is a simple product of circumstances and the 
 milieu, — this will be taken up in our next chapter. 
 
 Respecting Le Roy, who in his Dogme et Critique 
 
i64 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 (1907) examines, from a pragmatic standpoint, this 
 question of the value of reHgious dogma, at bottom 
 he is in absokite agreement with the ideas of James 
 in the matter. He only expresses them in a little 
 different form, for he expresses them for a different 
 public; I mean a public in which intellectual tradi- 
 tions are deeply rooted, — a public for which you 
 cannot simply " substitute " utilitarian dogmas for 
 theological or metaphysical dogmas, but for which 
 you must subordinate the metaphysical element to 
 the pragmatic element. For Le Roy the value of a 
 dogma lies in the fact that it is capable of being 
 " the formula of a rule of practical conduct." The 
 efforts that have been made to separate funda- 
 mentally these views of his from those of the 
 Anglo-Saxon pragmatists seem to us fruitless and 
 fine-spun. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND MODERN 
 SCHOLASTICISM 
 
 I. Scholasticism was the pragmatism of the middle ages: phi- 
 
 losophy buttressed up theology, and the latter sustained the 
 church in its social task. The emancipation of philosophy 
 by the method of Descartes, a natural method, soon made 
 necessary the re-formation of a pragmatic philosophy; for 
 the shock to the beliefs held by the people respecting 
 religion and liberty was too dangerous. When democracy 
 triumphed in the nineteenth century, and philosophical 
 speculations became accessible to all, it was necessary to 
 hark back to a systematic pragmatism; pragmatism is 
 modern scholasticism. At first negative pragmatism: phil- 
 osophers did not apply philosophic method to practical 
 problems, or excused themselves from doing so (Descartes, 
 Locke, Leibnitz). 
 
 II. Then came three great precursors of modern pragmatism — 
 (positive pragmatism): Pascal formulates the pragmatic 
 paradox in his Pensees by denying the rights of reason; 
 Rousseau opposes his pragmatism to the "sensualist" school 
 of the eighteenth century; Kant, after having killed the 
 practical reason by pure reason, kills pure reason by the 
 practical reason, solely through his anxiety to safe-guard 
 social morality. 
 
 III. Why the utilitarianism of the nineteenth century does not 
 suffice: it is a purely persuasive ethical system (no one can 
 force me to be benevolent toward others) ; the people need 
 a morality based on authority, a sanctioned morality; they 
 need the theological moraUty — which brings back prag- 
 matism. 
 
i66 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 IV. Superiority of the pragmatism of Kant to that of Messrs. 
 
 James and Schiller, from the point of view of philosophy, 
 
 V. Superiority of the scholastic systems to the modern prag- 
 matist systems from the point of view of philosophy. 
 
 I 
 
 Modern pragmatism — I mean that which finally 
 expanded into the movement over the destinies of 
 which William James presides — harkens back to the 
 precise period when the Cartesian philosophy began 
 to make a breach in the scholastic philosophy. 
 
 What was the scholastic philosophy? Philosophy 
 placed at the service of theology, ancilla theologice; 
 while theology itself was nothing more than the jus- 
 tifier, the advocate if you will, of the church, ancilla 
 ecclesicB; and the church, in its turn, proposed to 
 itself the enormous and delicate task of civilizing, 
 or, more specifically, of moralizing, barbarian 
 Europe, — a task, after all, which it accomplished 
 in as admirable a way as was possible, humanly 
 speaking.^ 
 
 In other words, the church, a moral institution, 
 had need of authority to restrain the barbarianism 
 of the peoples who were invading the Roman Em- 
 pire, and this authority she found in the exploita- 
 
 * Here again, for the sake of clearness in the exposition, I exclude 
 the psychological element, which is never lacking in the religion of 
 which the church has made use to attain her ends, — an element 
 which, mingled with the other, the utilitarian, seems sometimes to 
 be confounded with it in its action, but still remains distinct on 
 analysis, 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 167 
 
 tion of the religious instincts and tendencies, or (if 
 such language as this seems too irreverent) let us 
 say the metaphysical ignorance of the peoples whose 
 destinies she wished to control. Theological dogmas 
 were needed imposed by the requirements of moral 
 problems and which the dialectics of the schools had 
 in charge to expound, justify, demonstrate, develop. 
 And since cares of a practical kind absorbed the 
 larger part of the energies of the peoples, this 
 philosophy of utility had scarcely a rival. Hence 
 philosophy was pragmatic in its very essence. 
 Scholasticism is the pragmatism of the middle ages. 
 The middle ages are the epoch of pragmatism 
 triumphant. 
 
 And now what I have in mind to demonstrate, 
 by a rapid sketch of the history of philosophy, is 
 that we may invert the terms; that if scholasticism 
 is the pragmatism of the middle ages, vice versa 
 pragmatism is modern scholasticism. 
 
 One of two things is true: either mediaeval the- 
 ology and natural philosophy were in true and 
 perfect accord, and in that case scholasticism was to 
 be more and more recognized as the truth; or else 
 they only agreed in outward appearance and phi- 
 losophy, left to her own devices, contradicted 
 Catholic theology. 
 
 To decide the matter it was only necessary to 
 emancipate philosophy and see if it would still ter- 
 minate in scholasticism. This is just what was 
 going to take place in the sixteenth century. But 
 
i68 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 in the first place it would be false to say that our 
 independent philosophy was unknown to the middle 
 ages. If philosophy had not occasionally lifted her 
 head, the formula credo etsi ahsurdum would not 
 have been invented; if she had not had sometimes 
 terrible longings herself also to sit in the seat of 
 supreme authority, the dictum credo quia ahsurdum 
 would not have been proposed. But her voice was 
 stifled until at the Renaissance the minds of men 
 were penetrated and inspired by a great spirit of 
 freedom. And finally arrived Descartes, who de- 
 clared himself unable to believe against his reason 
 and proposed a credo quia rationale. He presented 
 a philosophic method (which was only the natural 
 scientific method brought back) ; and this philo- 
 sophic method, supported by the authority of Bacon 
 in England, was destined by the substitution of ob- 
 jectivism for subjectivism ^ to reach its climax in 
 the denial of scholastic truth. And further, it must 
 lead to a belief in the determinism of nature, — the 
 sine qua non of science; and if this triumphed it 
 would threaten the foundation of all the beliefs on 
 which rested the moral and social order. 
 
 The philosophers understood the dangers of the 
 *' new " method. They heard the voice of the prag- 
 matic conscience lift itself up within them, crying 
 for quarter to the philosophic conscience. One after 
 
 * A subjectivism entirely conscious and voluntary in scholasticism 
 (though not avowed), precisely like that of modern pragmatism, a 
 thing which distinguishes both of them from other historic subjrf^- 
 tivisms. 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 169 
 
 another and the greatest among them compro- 
 mised. Bacon compromised, Descartes compro- 
 mised, Hobbes compromised, Locke compromised, 
 Leibnitz compromised, Newton compromised; even 
 Hume compromised. They applied the philosophic 
 method (which we now call positivism) to mathe- 
 matics, to astronomy, to certain physical sciences 
 having only a slight connection with theology and 
 ethics. But when they came to what has been very 
 well styled, even up to our day, the " practical phi- 
 losophy," then invariably, some a little sooner, some 
 a little later, they recanted, for they foresaw the 
 formidable social cataclysm for which they would 
 be responsible (and of w^hich they would suffer 
 themselves), if they went on to shatter opinions 
 accredited as true and regarded as indispensable to 
 the moral order. Bacon, while combating contem- 
 porary superstitions, still did not wish that the 
 church should cease to instruct in religious beliefs, 
 since if human knowledge depends upon the senses 
 it is natural that divine truth should appear to us 
 to be irrational. Descartes pretended to believe, and 
 perhaps made himself think that he believed, that the 
 method of his Discours led him necessarily from 
 the cogito ergo sum to the existence of God, to God's 
 moral perfection, and to the immortality of the soul. 
 Hobbes, author of The Leviathan, writes : " The 
 truths of faith must be swallowed at a gulp, like salu- 
 tary but bitter pills: if you try to chew them you 
 will probably spit them out." Locke is drawn by 
 
I70 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 reason to the belief in the existence of a first cause, 
 or God ; but as to the attributes of God, belief in the 
 existence of an immaterial soul, in immortality, in 
 the resurrection, we ought to allow ourselves to be 
 guided by the church. We shall return to Leibnitz 
 further on. Spinoza starts from a purely natural- 
 istic conception of ethics akin to that of the homo 
 homini lupus of Hobbes (that man agrees to moral- 
 ity in order to satisfy, at least in part, his egoistic 
 instincts) ; but finally ends by recommending the 
 purely persuasive Christian virtues of self-abnega- 
 tion and of love of one's neighbor, Avhich are in 
 glaring contradiction with the principles laid down. 
 Finally, Hume, who was at once the keenest and 
 most magnificent genius and the most pitiless logi- 
 cian perhaps of all known philosophers, never dared 
 to express his entire thought when confronted with 
 the problems of the moral nature, but rather coun- 
 selled men to abandon themselves in religion (which 
 the Anglo-Saxons almost always confound with 
 morality), to the sway of instinct and to the general 
 opinion. 
 
 All this is negative pragmatism — if I may ven- 
 ture to make use of this term. It is a return to the 
 credo etsi absurdum. Yet the reader will observe 
 that at every new stage the philosophic method of 
 Descartes, the credo quia rationale, advances more 
 and more in the direction of morality and finally 
 encroaches upon its domain. After Hume there 
 remained only one step to take. Auguste Comte, at 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 171 
 
 the close of an interruption in the onward march, 
 was to take this step. He created " social physics " ; 
 that is, he deliberately introduced into moral and 
 social studies the rigorous method of science, or 
 social determinism. 
 
 II 
 
 Nevertheless there was, as early as the seven- 
 teenth century, a thinker whose intellect did not 
 abdicate its throne so readily at the beck of the 
 moral or religious consciousness, who saw distinctly 
 that not only did the philosophic method of Des- 
 cartes not lead to the moral and religious truths in 
 the presence of which the thinkers whom I have 
 cited laid down their arms, but that it was incom- 
 patible with them. He saw at once very plainly that 
 reason gives us an unsatisfactory reply to the moral 
 problem, and while endeavoring to understand the 
 latter, was only accumulating new and insoluble 
 questions. Such a thinker could not come to a halt 
 before a simple " No admittance ! " ; logic must have 
 all or nothing; he said "nothing"; one must 
 choose between moral truth and intellectual truth; 
 the former is more important to us than the latter; 
 thus the irrational shall have precedence over the 
 rational. Pascal is the first to deliberately formu- 
 late in modern times the pragmatic paradox. And 
 from the very start he formulates it with infinitely 
 more precision, logic, and courage than any one 
 
172 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 following him, James himself perhaps included. 
 The more we allow ourselves to be guided by reason 
 (he says) so much the more do we deviate from 
 moral and religious truth, and so much the more, 
 then, must truth be irrational. He pushes to the 
 limit the thesis in order to be compelled to fall back 
 on the antithesis. He who said " La dignite de 
 rhomme consiste dans la pensee " will only make 
 use of this belief in order to bring a charge of de- 
 ception against human reason and fall back upon 
 truth divine. The credo quia absurdum is revived.^ 
 
 ^ We must recollect that Pascal, having left only fragments of his 
 great work on the Christian religion, and so being always seen through 
 the medium of his editors, is imperfectly seen. It is always said that 
 Pascal wanted to show the rationality of religion. He wanted to show 
 the very opposite, i. e. : Man turns toward religion because his reason 
 does not furnish him the truth he is seeking — Does that prove the 
 rationality of religion? A man must "lay a wager" that religion 
 is true, must become "stupid" (s'abetir) in order to find the true in 
 religion; the mind must receive "grace" in order to persuade it to 
 accept religion, — this is Pascal's idea. We have not much con- 
 fidence in the testimony of his contemporaries. Take, for instance, 
 the famous fragment (ed. Havet, Art. XXIV, 26): "Men despise 
 religion; they hate it and at the same time fear that it may be true. 
 To remedy this state of things we must begin by showing that religion 
 is not contrary to reason; then that it is worthy of reverence, give 
 it our respect ; next render it worthy of love, make men ardently wish 
 that it were true, and then show that it is true. Worthy of reverence 
 in that it has so well understood man ; worthy of love because it prom- 
 ises him welfare and happiness." Is it possible to discover a more 
 banal vindication of religion? Either these men who pretend to 
 have received these revelations from Pascal himself did not rightly 
 understand him, or else Pascal, when he had set forth his scheme, 
 had not yet formulated it clearly in his own mind. "Worthy of 
 reverence in that it has so well understood man; worthy of love 
 because it promises him welfare and happiness" — that is, to be 
 sure, pragmatic, but hardly original. If we must depend on this to 
 render Pascal profound, what a quantity of profound thinkers the 
 world has produced! 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 173 
 
 The reason is our natural organism of thought 
 and instrument of knowledge; hence if we decline 
 to submit to it there must be special motives. In the 
 case of Pascal eternal preoccupation of the infinite 
 {le totirment de rinfini) was undoubtedly one of 
 these (the sentimental element in religion) ; but 
 there were also utilitarian predilections, and so of 
 a pragmatic kind, which led him to his credo quia 
 absitrdum. I should even venture to affirm these 
 to have been the determining motives since he went 
 and joined himself to the Jansenists who were 
 chiefly concerned in reacting against the ethics of 
 Jesuits, which ethics were menacing society with 
 anarchy. 
 
 Pascal is the author of the Lettres Provinciales 
 
 as well as of the Pensees; in his own day he was 
 
 known solely as the author of the Provinciales. 
 
 The idea of revolution implied in the method of 
 
 Descartes had made but a slight impression on a 
 
 very small elite of thinkers; the church, whether 
 
 Catholic or Protestant, remained mistress of men's 
 
 hearts ; morality sanctioned by religion continued to 
 
 be the popular philosophy ; hence the Pensees must 
 
 be regarded as a kind of prophetic book; Pascal 
 
 could see that the final outcome of Descartes was 
 
 to be Comte and Spencer, and two hundred years 
 
 in advance he tried to parry the blow. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 Indeed, after Pascal, science — which is nothing 
 
 more than philosophy applied to the phenomena of 
 
174 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 nature — could not but acquire an ever-increasing 
 consciousness of itself and of its power. And to 
 every forward step of science there will correspond 
 a pragmatic reaction. In proportion as these for- 
 ward movements become more formidable, the re- 
 actions are bound to become more decided, since the 
 incompatibility of the two systems is thereby thrown 
 into greater prominence. 
 
 The first manifestation of pragmatism, which, at 
 the time it appeared, had a certain degree of impor- 
 tance, was that of Bayle. As early as the close of 
 the seventeenth century the premonitory tokens of 
 the impulse toward emancipation which was to char- 
 acterize the age of Voltaire became numerous. 
 Catholicism was still sufficiently strong to resist; 
 but Protestantism, which rejected the idea of author- 
 ity in religious and moral matters, had to foresee 
 the approach of the time when enemies of religion 
 simply by drawing out to their legitimate conclu- 
 sions the consequences of free thought — another 
 phrase for the philosophic method of Descartes — 
 were going to conflict with dogma. Protestantism 
 took refuge in revelation, a step which was in oppo- 
 sition to the ecclesiastical tradition of Catholicism 
 on the one hand and to rationalism on the other. 
 Bayle based the acceptance of this " revelation " 
 on the pragmatic paradox: reason leads us astray 
 instead of guiding us. Taking up again the antin- 
 omies of Zeno of Elea, he showed how philosophy 
 leads to scepticism. Truth, then, must be a-rational 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 175 
 
 or irrational (it amounts to the same thing) ; it 
 must be revealed. It should be added, however, 
 that, while Bayle was very pragmatic in his objects, 
 he was very much of a philosopher by temperament, 
 and he allowed himself to be drawn on farther than 
 was proper for his purpose. He proved too much. 
 He proved that a society of atheists could be moral. 
 Hence his system seemed as dangerous to Protes- 
 tants as to Catholics; and it was, in the long run, 
 the rationalists who profited by his penetrating criti- 
 cism. The debt of Voltaire to Bayle's Historical 
 and Critical Dictionary is well known. 
 
 What Bayle accomplished on the Continent 
 Shaftesbury accomplished in England, where Bacon, 
 Hobbes, and Locke were disquieting minds of a 
 pragmatic temperament. Taking up for his own 
 account the deductions of Bayle (that reason only 
 points out the errors in our philosophic opinions, 
 but is not a lamp to our feet in practical life, is in- 
 deed dangerous to follow), he proposes a religion 
 and a morality based on a rational appreciation of 
 social problems, but absolutely independent ration- 
 ally from every question of principle, i. c, ignoring 
 philosophy proper. There was in this a vague anti- 
 cipation of the system of the two reasons — the pure 
 and the practical — of Kant, whom we shall now 
 very soon reach. 
 
 
 The most formidable pragmatic movement before 
 our day — we cannot yet see how far the one in the 
 
176 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 midst of which we are living will lead us — is that 
 of the second half of the eighteenth century, and 
 the greatest pragmatist was, and probably always 
 will be, Jean Jacques Rousseau. The movement 
 at that time, like that of James, owes its importance 
 in large measure to the historical circumstances amid 
 which it was produced. The old social edifice was 
 threatening to fall in ruins; and it was in France 
 that the great attempt to repair and restore it was 
 to be made, for the abuses of the ancien regime were 
 there manifesting themselves with more virulent 
 power than elsewhere. All the French philosophy 
 of the eighteenth century was more or less prag- 
 matic. But, generally speaking, thinkers either con- 
 tented themselves with attacking the old ideas in 
 their theoretic feebleness or in their consequences 
 (the Encyclopaedists and Voltaire) ; or else they 
 proposed political theories, while leaving in the 
 shade the moral principles which ought to have been 
 the foundation of said theories (Montesquieu) ; or, 
 again, they drew up fine theories about man, king 
 of creation, — theories which had only distant rela- 
 tions with concrete problems (Buffon). Rousseau 
 alone squarely and clearly laid down the pragmatic 
 question, " What is such and such a theory good 
 for morally f Rousseau starts out on that ques- 
 tion in his very first Discourse on : " Whether the 
 restoration of science and the arts has helped to ele- 
 vate morals? " (and we may go back even farther 
 and find similar ideas in the work of his youth, now 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 177 
 
 printed in his Complete Works). The principle of 
 his answer is: Judge an idea by its social conse- 
 quences; choose the philosophy you are going to 
 preach to the people by its moral consequences : by 
 so doing you will get the truth. The same theories 
 inspire from one end to the other and with unerring 
 logic the Disc ours siir VInegalite, the Lettre siir les 
 Spectacles, the Noiwelle Helo'ise (the two parts of 
 which contradict each other diametrically, except on 
 this point), Emile, and the Contrat social. He at- 
 tacks the civilization of the past, — art, literature, 
 science included, — for it has resulted in inequality, 
 and consequently in war. Then in the case of those 
 who favored this inequality, the wealthy, it has 
 resulted in the taste for luxury which procures false 
 and dangerous joys; in the case of others it has 
 resulted in the frequent abandonment of the peace- 
 able and natural occupations of life; it has killed 
 out everywhere even the possibility of true and 
 healthful pleasures. The theatre, for instance, needs 
 the approval of the people in order to live, and, to 
 secure this, it will flatter their passions, and, by 
 presenting vice in amiable colors will encourage it; 
 actors will accustom themselves to imitating feelings 
 and sentiments instead of approving of them, and 
 this is hypocrisy; etc., etc. 
 
 On the other hand, Rousseau attacks the philoso- 
 phers of his time, for they exhibit man as necessarily 
 the sport of his passions; they lead us to determin- 
 ism and irreligion. In one way — though not in 
 
 12 
 
178 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 so keen a way as Pascal — Rousseau had the pro- 
 phetic eye. He had no need to read them ; he knew 
 even before they had pubHshed their works at what 
 goal those writers would arrive who, under the pre- 
 text of enlightening men, undermined the moral 
 beliefs necessary to good order and the happiness 
 of humanity, — such authors, I mean, as Lamettrie 
 {UHomme machine, 1748), D'Holbach {Systeme 
 de la Nature, 1771), and Helvetius {De rHomme, 
 1771). In place of working to emancipate the 
 minds of men together with them, Rousseau works 
 against them. He had left them as soon as he had 
 caught a glimpse of the way their speculations were 
 going. In the second of his Dialogues, — his su- 
 preme work, in which ** Rousseau " judges " Jean 
 Jacques," — he says of himself, " I never saw him 
 listen patiently to any doctrine that he believed to 
 be hostile to the public good." {CEuvres, ix, p. 94.) 
 But let us not forget that he toiled to replace one 
 slavery, that of the artificial civilization of his time, 
 by another slavery, that of morality, which seemed 
 to him, not without reason, to be less dangerous for 
 the people than that of knowledge. 
 
 The famous first phrase in Emile, " Everything is 
 good as it leaves the hands of the Creator; every- 
 thing degenerates in the hands of man," is only a 
 striking application of the pragmatic principle, for 
 it means this: Man, as he leaves the hands of the 
 Creator, is man simple and unreflecting, who does 
 not concern himself anxiously about the true but 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 179 
 
 about the useful, and who arranges his life from the 
 practical point of view. The civilized man, on the 
 contrary, is the man who develops his understand- 
 ing and attains to the determinist philosophy of 
 causes and effects in the domain of ideas, and to 
 social inequality (the cause of all the evils of civili- 
 zation in the domain of morals). For Rousseau 
 himself affirmed that, unless he condemned his own 
 understanding to inaction, man could not help devel- 
 oping the very civilization which he, Rousseau, 
 attacks. 
 
 It must be said in favor of Rousseau — or was 
 it only shrewdness on his part ? — that he never con- 
 demned science itself, but only its vulgarization. 
 And that is a point in which he was, it seems to me, 
 much superior to many pragmatists before and after 
 his time. But that he refrained from always utter- 
 ing all his thought appears to me to be clear. In 
 the last pages of the first Discourse, for instance, 
 he recognizes that the science and the arts are not 
 bad for everybody, and that surely in the hands of 
 an intellectual elite they are even excellent things. 
 Quite naturally, people did not understand these 
 reservations, adroitly made, and the Discours were 
 attacked as though they were not to be found in 
 them. Rousseau returned to this point and insisted 
 on it in the discussion that followed, — ready, how- 
 ever, to forget it again in writing his subsequent 
 works, the Entile particularly. 
 
 Why does he feel the necessity of returning to 
 
i8o ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 this question again in the Dialogues f " People per- 
 sisted," he says in the third dialogue, " in accusing 
 him of wanting to destroy the sciences, the arts, the 
 theatres, the academies, and to immerse the world 
 again in barbarism. But, on the contrary, he has 
 always insisted on preserving existing institutions, 
 maintaining that their destruction would only re- 
 move the palliating circumstances, while leaving the 
 vices intact, and substitute brigandage for corrup- 
 tion." The defence is quite unfortunate. It is very 
 much as if one should say to a man who has lamed 
 himself and walks with crutches, " You are right 
 in walking with crutches, for under the present cir- 
 cumstances you walk better so. And not merely 
 that, but you have done well to break your legs, for, 
 if you had not had this misfortune you would have 
 had to go without crutches." Was Rousseau him- 
 self satisfied with his statement? It would be sur- 
 prising if he had been; but he had somewhat 
 changed his point of view since the first Discourse ; 
 or let us rather say he had become better aware of 
 the true spirit of his philosophy, and now realized 
 that he had to choose between philosophy and prag- 
 matism. His pragmatic work was then put above 
 his disinterested solicitude for the truth. He de- 
 cided to spread abroad useful beliefs and to relegate 
 to a subordinate place the logical agreement of 
 thoughts. It is perhaps the reason that explains 
 why he gave up, as early as 1762 or 1763, writing 
 his treatise on the sensations La morale sensitive ou 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES i8i 
 
 le materialisme du sage, the subject of which, how- 
 ever, fascinated him (see the Confessions, ix). He 
 had in mind to show in it how much our ideas, our 
 sentiments, our moral actions depend on physical 
 conditions and anterior physiological states. He 
 meant to affirm that, knowing these physical and 
 moral relations, man would be better able to manage 
 his passions, or master them. It was Condillac, 
 whose friend he had been and with whom he had 
 associated for several years, — and to whom he 
 perhaps owned his theories on the origin of lan- 
 guage, — who succeeded in inspiring him with the 
 idea of writing this book. But as he went on far- 
 ther along the road of pragmatism, Rousseau must 
 have feared lest such a '' treatise " might demon- 
 strate too much, — that is, might suggest the idea 
 of irresponsibility, — and be employed to establish 
 the foundation of " social physics," as Comte would 
 one day phrase it, or of a mere " science of morals," 
 as Levy-Briihl would say ; in short, lest it should be 
 furnishing arms against his other writings and the 
 purpose he had in view in writing them. So he dis- 
 missed it from his mind and was not perhaps very 
 sorry when one day at Motiers he discovered that 
 notes which he had already begun to collect for 
 this work had been stolen or got lost during the pre- 
 cipitate flight from Montmorency after the condem- 
 nation of Emile. 
 
 Thus the work of Rousseau remains pragmatic 
 from A. to Z. And, after having rejected all 
 
i82 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 a-moral or immoral philosophy and theology, he 
 draws up the positive creeds of these in the Pro- 
 fession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar, which will 
 remain the profession of faith of the pragmatists 
 of all times. It affirms as a fact the existence of 
 an absolute moral law which makes itself known 
 to man through the conscience as the voice of God. 
 Unless it observes this law the world condemns it- 
 self to anarchy. Furthermore, the world must, 
 under penalty of injustice, be completed (that is, 
 have an epilogue) elsewhere. To the beliefs just 
 mentioned must be added belief in the existence of 
 the soul and of the continuance of the personal life 
 after the death of the body.^ 
 
 Rousseau, owing to special circumstances, ad- 
 dressed his pragmatic doctrines to an entire people. 
 In Germany matters had a different complexion. 
 Civilization had been slower in penetrating, and 
 the first thinkers appeared at the epoch of the 
 Renaissance and of the Reformation, a weighty 
 and momentous epoch from the social point of view, 
 and in which it was impossible to ignore the practi- 
 cal circumstances of life. The early German phi- 
 losophers are almost as much preoccupied with the 
 moral spirit of their doctrines as with the theoretical 
 aspect of them. The result of this was that the 
 
 * The Monist for October, 1909, publishes an extensive study by 
 the author on Rousseau a Forerunner of Modern Fra^matism. 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 183 
 
 conflict between philosophy and life was slower in 
 appearing. And when it did appear it was upon 
 philosophic ground. Leibnitz and Wolf are the two 
 great names of German philosophy in the eighteenth 
 century. Leibnitz rose into the highest speculations 
 in pure mathematics, and his metaphysical specula- 
 tions are, at first, of a character purely intellectual. 
 But he forced himself to bend the latter to the exi- 
 gencies of a practical philosophy, and wrote his 
 pragmatic Theodicy, a generous attempt, perhaps, 
 but which wrought more evil than good to the cause ; 
 for it inspired in Voltaire his tragically witty Can- 
 dide. That the Theodicy was saluted as a great 
 work in Germany tells us much of the status of 
 mind in that country; evidently that sort of phi- 
 losophy was wanted there. But the typical popular 
 thinker of Germany was Wolf. He conceived a 
 philosophy which at the very outset should satisfy 
 at once theoretical aspirations and practical aspira- 
 tion, and show how we do not wish to dispense with 
 the former and ought not to dispense with the 
 latter. Wolf places them calmly in juxtaposition 
 without over much troubling himself whether they 
 work well in harness or not. Philosophy is the sci- 
 ence of the possible, — of the possible ( i ) in the 
 domain of the intellect; that is, metaphysics (ontol^ 
 ogy, cosmology, psychology, and natural theology) ; 
 and (2) in the domain of the will; that is, practical 
 philosophy (ethics, political economy, politics). 
 Morality, then, is put on one side, and psychology on 
 
i84 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 the other, — so, since we hold them carefully sepa- 
 rated, they will not clash. Yet the penetrating criti- 
 cism of Hume ran its course in Germany, sapping at 
 their foundation the facile combinations of Wolf. 
 The problem of the relations between pure reason and 
 the practical reason was then bound to be laid down, 
 but it was to be strictly upon the ground of philos- 
 ophy this time — not as in France in the writings 
 of Rousseau. Kant tackled the problem with his 
 well-known vigor; after having been inspired by 
 Hume he accepted his final inspiration from Rous- 
 seau. With Hume later he recognized that the 
 maladroit juxtaposition of the determinism of natu- 
 ral phenomena and of the contingency of moral 
 phenomena was untenable. Moral and natural phe- 
 nomena intersect and interlace continually; the 
 phenomenal world is one. Is it determined or free? 
 that is the question. Kant replies : the world seems 
 to us strictly determined in all its parts ; more than 
 that, our understanding cannot conceive of the 
 world except under the aspect of determinism the 
 most absolute. But if it were the absolutely true, 
 the consequences would be such that we cannot 
 accept. There is no other resource except to declare 
 that the determined world is only an appearance 
 (phenomenal), but that behind this phenomenal 
 world there is another world that our intellect must 
 assume (an "intelligible" world) which is the true 
 one, and in which contingency (i. e., freedom) is 
 conceivable. To express it in a nutshell, Kant, after 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 185 
 
 having slain the practical reason by pure reason, 
 faces about, terrified, to now slay pure reason by the 
 practical reason. He begins by abandoning himself 
 entirely to the pure reason, and this by virtue of its 
 empty nothingness throws him back into the arms 
 of the practical reason. Like Pascal he emphasizes 
 the thesis (of determinism) in order to be forced 
 to throw himself back into the (pragmatic) anti- 
 thesis : credo quia absurdum. 
 
 Kant laid down in immutable terms the alterna- 
 tive, pragmatism or philosophy, not pragmatism and 
 philosophy; pure reason or practical reason, not 
 pure reason and practical reason. If the intellectual 
 " noumenal " world is different from the phenom- 
 enal world it means that either one or the other is a 
 deceptive appearance; if one is true, the other not 
 in harmony with it is false. It is impossible to main- 
 tain that the phenomenal world is not in harmony 
 with the intellectual world, but the latter is in per- 
 fect accord with the former. Kant decides in favor 
 of the intellectual world, in favor of pragmatism; 
 the phenomenal world is therefore deceptive; pure 
 reason, the human intellect, is sacrificed. Kant has 
 tried, however, to reconcile them by his Critic of the 
 Judgment. But as much as his work of separation 
 was definitive and absolute, as much was his attempt 
 at co-ordination (though perhaps ingenious) defec- 
 tive. His successors have seen this very clearly and 
 have taken another course. 
 
 * * 
 
i86 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 Fichte proposed a plan of harmonization by the 
 absorption of the pure reason in the practical reason. 
 The phenomenal world (determinist) is the mode 
 of manifestation freely chosen by the absolute ego 
 (intelligible). Hence freedom is before the world, 
 determinism prevails after the ego has manifested 
 itself, — but never pure freedom and determinism 
 together. This position excludes pragmatism, for 
 freedom in the actual world is precisely what it 
 wishes, the rest is indifferent. 
 
 Schelling gropes in genial fashion in the super- 
 sensible realms. 
 
 Hegel absorbs the practical reason in the pure 
 reason. The transcendental Idea manifests itself 
 not freely, but, on the contrary, after a determined 
 mode (according to its intrinsic nature) ; but to 
 conscious man this transcendental idea manifests 
 itself as having a moral or intellectual end. The 
 moral character of the Idea (that is to say, so under- 
 stood by the human intellect) betrays, in the anthro- 
 pomorphic character Hegel attributes to it, ineradi- 
 cable pragmatic prepossessions. But Schopenhauer 
 did to death these pragmatic fancies by declaring 
 that the transcendental idea which was realizing 
 itself in the world was also a-rational, a " Will " 
 without moral purpose, indifferent to human reason, 
 to man; such, said he, did experience reveal it to 
 be. Schopenhauer thus withers up the last roots of 
 metaphysical optimism and moral transcendentalism. 
 Hartmann rounds out the subject by declaring the 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 187 
 
 " Will " of Schopenhauer to be unconscious. The 
 " Unconscious " is a step in advance of " Will," 
 simply because will is still a moral term. In fact, 
 by denying the moral element of Hegel's Idea 
 Schopenhauer had already abandoned the pragmatic 
 ground of ethics. Hartmann, by calling the will 
 " unconscious," deprives the Absolute even of its 
 psychological character; that is to say, he really 
 removes the metaphysical problem, blots it out; his 
 metaphysical " Unconscious " is as vacuous as Spen- 
 cer's '' Unknowable." Hartmann soon realized this, 
 and he abandoned the " unconscious " for a simple 
 " Phenomenology of the moral consciousness " ; 
 which means science, or psychology of morals, pure 
 and simple. 
 
 Thus transcendentalism, in trying to save some 
 scraps of practical reason with the pragmatism of 
 Kant, saw^ itself obliged to abandon its positions one 
 by one in order to arrive at its own proper negation. 
 And so, in German speculation at the end of the 
 nineteenth century, we reach this result: the prac- 
 tical reason cannot assert its rights in philosophy; 
 either it remains silent, or else clings to the pure 
 reason. Kant was right : pragmatism or philosophy ; 
 but when he chose pragmatism he took the wrong 
 road, intellectually speaking. 
 
i88 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 III 
 
 Thus we have so far three great pragmatic mani- 
 festations, — that of Pascal (in opposition to what 
 is impHed in the method of Descartes) ; that of 
 Rousseau (in opposition to the sensuahstic philos- 
 ophies of the eighteenth century) ; that of Kant (in 
 opposition to Hume). I might give an exposition, 
 from this point of view, of the philosophy of the 
 nineteenth century; but the fluctuations between 
 pragmatism and philosophy being more rapid, are 
 also less potent and have not the same importance. 
 Let me mention, in passing, the French spiritualistic 
 and eclectic movement ( Royer-Collard, Maine de 
 Biran, and especially Cousin) against the menacing 
 scientific spirit; the reaction against the German 
 materialism of Biichner, Vogt, and Moleschott, — 
 which was only a revival of the theories of Lamet- 
 trie, D'Holbach, and Helvetius, profiting by recent 
 scientific acquisitions, — a reaction on the part of 
 theologians, philosophers like Lange and Ulrici, or 
 Lotze, or even Fechner. Lotze is the modern Leib- 
 nitz, and upon a conception of the world of a 
 mechanical cast, seeks to construct a teleological 
 system. Fechner has a scientific mind thirsting for 
 mystery. But these attempts at reaction were but 
 as dikes of sand swept away without effort, one 
 after the other by the rising flood, formidable and 
 rapid, of the scientific movement of the nineteenth 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 189 
 
 century. The philosophers, in their task of syn- 
 thesizing the acquisitions of the workers in science, 
 every day more numerous and indefatigable, were 
 scarcely able to keep up with them. Comte appeared 
 and formulated the aspirations of science in his 
 great work. Taine appeared, and Spencer. And 
 how many, like Darwin and Wallace, after they had 
 done so much to promote the progress of science, in 
 the sequel made attempts to block it! So James, 
 yesterday the author of Psychology, to-day the 
 author of Pragmatism, Yet on English and Anglo- 
 Saxon ground the struggle against the scientific 
 spirit had for a long time an aspect quite different 
 from what it had either in France or Germany. It 
 will be interesting for us to glance at this for a 
 moment. 
 
 From the time of the Reformation, philosophy 
 in those countries occupied itself with the practical 
 life more than in France. There was therefore less 
 need of strong pragmatic reaction in the eighteenth 
 century than in France. A Rousseau would have 
 been superfluous; a Shaftesbury and a Clarke suf- 
 ficed. And when Hume spoke he did not create in 
 Great Britain a philosophical revolution as in Ger- 
 many ; his scepticism was simply ignored. Leaving 
 critical speculation to its fate, Anglo-Saxon thinkers 
 and writers developed philosophy on its practical 
 side exclusively. The Scotch school alone had tried 
 to reply. The real pragmatic reaction against Hume 
 was the Utilitarianism of Bentham (who proposed, 
 
190 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 without any further worry about the principles of 
 philosophy, the maximum of enjoyment and the 
 minimum of suffering for all men), and allied the- 
 ories such as Malthusianism. But these economic 
 and social theories were not set in formal opposition 
 to those of Hume; they were constructed alongside 
 and independently of philosophy. Even in the writ- 
 ings of Mill, who later resumed, on the one hand, 
 Hume's studies of the theories of knowledge, and, 
 on the other, the utilitarian doctrines of Bentham, 
 the relation between the two parts of the fabric is 
 far from being apparent at first sight. In the mean- 
 while utilitarianism did not succeed ; for utilitarian- 
 ism is pragmatism based on the persuasive reason; 
 that is to say, that it provides no sanction for 
 morality apart from, or higher than, man. Tell a 
 man in practical life that it is more rational for him 
 to renounce his advantage or profit in such and 
 such a matter, and for his neighbor to do the same 
 in another case, or tell him that there is a system 
 of equilibrium involved which is delightful to con- 
 template from the intellectual point of view, and he 
 will laugh to scorn your " rational " and your " in- 
 tellectual." Or, again, urge upon him that some 
 one else may refuse to obey the moral law if he does 
 not see him doing as much, and it is clear that he 
 will not feel himself obliged to do more than ob- 
 serve the outward appearances of morality; if that 
 is all that is necessary to induce another to live the 
 moral life he will submit to that. The only trouble 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 191 
 
 is that the other man will reason in the same way, 
 and everything will crumble to pieces. Utilitarian- 
 ism has no reason to urge to hinder me from put- 
 ting my interest before that of others, or to make 
 me take into consideration the interest of another 
 if I do not want to, or to ignore his interest if I 
 have the power. On the utilitarian theory a Napo- 
 leon is entirely justified. Man must feel above him 
 a power that forces him to be just, and this power 
 must speak to him directly, — for example, through 
 the power of the church, — or indirectly through 
 the voice of conscience, which has no force unless 
 it represents the voice of God. Utilitarianism is 
 perhaps a very noble ideal of character, though Uto- 
 pian, as is also Malthusianism, — and, one cannot 
 help adding, an ideal conceived by men a bit naive 
 and shallow. Suppose a person feels that he is, 
 and really is, a superior person, would it be rational 
 that he should sacrifice himself to an inferior? Evi- 
 dently not. It would be idiotic for him to do so, 
 and for others to ask it of him. Utilitarianism, 
 then, only offers egoism as a moral principle, — ego- 
 ism admissible in the case of superior persons, re- 
 grettable in the contrary case. It exalts anarchy 
 into a principle. 
 
 Hence utilitarianism, although plainly inspired 
 by pragmatic ideas, was opposed by the traditional 
 morality based upon religion, — and that, too, in 
 the name of pragmatic principles; for pragmatism 
 without religious sanction would not suffice. 
 
192 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 There were, it is true, some attempts at reconcili- 
 ation, such as the HegeHan ethics of Green, or the 
 emasculated evolutionism of Sidgwick, or the miti- 
 gated utilitarianism of Leslie Stephen. But these 
 could be only temporary remedies. The always- 
 rising tide of science swept away from ethics its 
 every sanction, irresistibly moving on until it 
 reached deterministic ground. And when people 
 saw the belief in the old popular ethics of the con- 
 science, the ethics guaranteed by God and immortal- 
 ity, menaced as it had been a century previous in 
 France, going to wreck and ruin, swept away not 
 merely by philosophical criticism but by the affirma- 
 tions of scientists, and by utilitarianism, their minds 
 were filled with a kind of panic. This rocking and 
 quaking ground under their feet must absolutely be 
 abandoned ; cost what it might, authority in morals 
 must be secured. Then began a period of famous 
 personal conversions to Catholicism, at the same 
 time that there was manifested in the bosom of the 
 established church as a body a strong tendency to 
 fraternize with Catholicism. This period is even 
 to-day not yet passed, and only the triumph of 
 pragmatism might perhaps avail to arrest it. Then 
 also it was decided to lend a more attentive ear to 
 spiritists and occultists; if they perchance were 
 right, then "materialism" (for this is the name 
 still given to science by moralists and theologians) 
 would be vanquished. Some great names were 
 added to the list of these mystics, — such as Lord 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 193 
 
 Kelvin and William James. In Anglo-Saxon coun- 
 tries the founding and successful carrying on of 
 these societies for physical research was really and 
 pre-eminently a pragmatic suggestion. For moral 
 and sentimental reasons they set their hearts on 
 proving, by such means, immortality, the existence 
 of spirits, and God. It is evident that these societies 
 do not exhibit the complete disinterestedness which 
 we find in the researches of Frenchmen like Flam- 
 marion, Jules Bois, Richet, or Italians like Morselli 
 and Lombroso. 
 
 Catholicism is a refuge for very exalted intellects 
 or for very plain ones, for a Pasteur or for a Joan 
 of Arc. We live in an epoch of intellectual medi- 
 ocrity, and the masses begin to be both too well in- 
 formed to remain Catholics and not well enough 
 informed — and never will be — to become such 
 again on their own initiative. On the other hand, 
 the occult sciences advance but slowly; people can't 
 wait for them ; it is even uncertain whether they will 
 ever yield entirely reliable results. Hence, entangled 
 more and more in the meshes of science, there was 
 only one course to take: the pragmatic spirit must 
 cease to act on the defensive and assume the offen- 
 sive. In order to hinder philosophy from absorb- 
 ing ethics, ethics must absorb philosophy. In other 
 words, the pragmatic spirit shall set up as a system 
 and become '* Pragmatism " ; refuse the right to 
 exist to every philosophy that is not expedient from 
 the human point of view; cease to consider ration- 
 
 13 
 
194 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 ality as a criterion of truth; in short, declare that 
 a doctrine must be judged by its practical conse- 
 quences. If these consequences seem good for the 
 human race, the doctrine is true; if the conse- 
 quences are unfavorable to the progress of society 
 and to the happiness of the individual, it is false. 
 This is tantamount to reducing the philosophic 
 reason to the practical reason. Not being able to 
 vanquish philosophy, and yet not being willing to 
 allow its spirit to prevail, pragmatism is trying 
 to do precisely what the church in the middle ages 
 did — make a servant of philosophy. Philosophy is 
 not its own end; it must simply serve the interests 
 of humanity ; and if, of its own initiative, it showed 
 a tendency to deviate from this way, it would be 
 necessary to force it to return to the road of oppor- 
 tunism. Man must not adjust himself to philos- 
 ophy, but philosophy adjust itself to man. 
 
 So pragmatism is, in fact, as I have said, the 
 modern scholasticism. It is only a new way of 
 affirming the traditional beliefs necessary to human- 
 ity, — God, freedom, immortality. When scholas- 
 tic pragmatism was finally discomfited and beaten 
 by science in the nineteenth century, the Protestant 
 pragmatism was formed. And, like scholasticism, 
 the pragmatic speculations of Messrs. Dewey, 
 Schiller, and James are only attempts to harmonize 
 natural and scientific philosophy with the pragmatic 
 imperatives. 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 195 
 
 IV 
 
 And they are wholly fruitless attempts, — here 
 once more this is perfectly evident. 
 
 For, in the first place, I must repeat now, just as in 
 the case of scholasticism and of Kant, that one of 
 two things is true : either the pure reason and the 
 practical reason (I make use of these convenient 
 terms) do not intrinsically contradict each other, 
 and in that case there is no need of pragmatism ; or 
 else they do intrinsically contradict each other, and 
 in that case the practical reason must contradict 
 pure reason, pragmatism must contradict science. 
 
 But this is not all. Looking attentively at the 
 matter, the superiority of Kant as a thinker, that 
 Kant whom the pragmatists so affect to despise, is 
 dazzlingly conspicuous. For his part he had very 
 clearly grasped the idea of the irreducibleness of 
 the dilemma thus stated, and that practical rea- 
 son and pure reason are in hopeless contradiction. 
 Hence only one way presented itself to his mind 
 (and only one way could present itself) by which 
 we should be permitted to affirm at once the laws of 
 pure reason and of practical reason, and that is that 
 the data of pure reason are only appearance (seem- 
 ing), that there lies back of the world of appear- 
 ance (the phenomenal world) a real (a noumenal) 
 world where freedom houses, and in the existence 
 of which we are led to believe by our understanding; 
 
196 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 in that way the conflicts between the pure reason 
 and the practical reason may be conceived as being 
 only in appearance ; thus also determinism and free- 
 dom (with the corollary doctrines of moral con- 
 science, immortality, God) are not absolutely ex- 
 cluded. Only — and here is, of course, the weak 
 point — we are obliged to pass out of the phe- 
 nomenal world in order to obtain this result; it is 
 the only way. And the pragmatists, who have 
 clapped themselves on the back in admiration of 
 their doughtiness, modernity, and science in mak- 
 ing uproarious fun of metaphysics and the noumenal 
 world, and who have presumed to affirm the co- 
 existence of freedom and determinism within the 
 world of phenomena, have entirely forgotten Kant's 
 object — namely that he assumed the existence of 
 the noumenal world for the very purpose of not 
 being obliged to end up either with determinism 
 and its moral consequences or with absolute scepti- 
 cism in the phenomenal world. The thing is as 
 clear as it can be; inasmuch as there is incom- 
 patibility without appeal in the phenomenal world 
 between pure reason, reason reasoning, scientific 
 reason, on the one hand, and reason non-reason- 
 ing (reason of the heart that reason does not ac- 
 knowledge or take cognizance of, as Pascal said), 
 on the other hand, — an incompatibility proved by 
 the very existence of a pragmatic philosophy differ- 
 ent from philosophy itself, — pragmatism, by reject- 
 ing as pure twaddle the " noumenal world "of Kant, 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 197 
 
 is in consequence obliged to choose between pure 
 reason and practical reason in the phenomenal 
 zvorld. It chooses practical reason, or reason 
 non-reasoning, and rejects pure reason, or reason 
 reasoning. It takes as its philosophic base the 
 a-rational, or irrational, definitively, deliberately, 
 absolutely. The mere title of an essay like that of 
 Mr. Dewey, — The Logical Conditions of a Scien- 
 tific Treatment of Morality, — is a defiance of good 
 sense, since ethics, if it enters into the domain of 
 science, has no special logical conditions, and if it 
 does not enter there, it has nothing to do with logic.'^ 
 It is an astonishing exhibition of naivete, when 
 you come to think of it, the desire of men in this 
 day to reconcile pragmatism and science. It amounts 
 to a cool denial that there is any problem of philos- 
 ophy, and the affirmation that common sense suffices 
 to solve everything ; that all the scholasticism of the 
 middle ages had no reason-for-being; but that that 
 imposing monument of the intellect means nothing, 
 that it was just for the fun of it that for generations 
 intellects like Johannes Scotus Erigena, Anselm, 
 Abelard, Bernard de Clairveaux, Duns Scotus, and 
 Thomas Aquinas grew white-haired in studying this 
 problem and heaped absurdities on absurdities. Of 
 
 ^ Professor Dewey seems to realize this very well. He says "mo- 
 rality" in his title, not "ethics." As a matter of fact, ethics is studied 
 from the point of view of the practical reason; but morality may be 
 studied from the point of view of the practical reason and from the 
 point of view of pure reason; as a part of ethics or as a part of the 
 science of morals. Now Professor Dewey evidently has ethics in 
 view. There is a curious hesitation in all this. 
 
198 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 course ! all they had to do was to hide their heads in 
 the sand and they would not have seen the spectre 
 of determinism peering out on every hand, and all 
 would have been said and done — only the problem 
 would have remained. This reconciling plan of the 
 pragmatists implies that Kant is a madman, and 
 that the nineteenth century, which almost wholly 
 subsisted on Kant, was affected by the same mad- 
 ness. It means that we can at our leisure deny all 
 science. In a word, it is to invert all philosophic 
 thought. William James is right: it is a philo- 
 sophic revolution. But when he tells us (Prag- 
 matism, p. 170) that "common sense" is the 
 philosophy adopted by pragmatism, does he mean 
 it as serious doctrine, or is it a pathetic avowal 
 concealed under a fine cloak of oratory? 
 
 The writer of these lines does not, however, 
 accept the conclusions of the philosophy of Kant any 
 more than William James does. It is impossible to 
 establish any solid thought-structure whatever upon 
 the " noumenal world." Everything we affirm of it 
 we affirm by reasoning upon data of an order differ- 
 ent from that of pure reason, but after the manner 
 of apprehending of pure reason, which, as we have 
 seen, is deceptive from the point of view of absolute 
 truth. And since its data in the domain of pure 
 reason are false per se, which is the only domain in 
 which we see it really at work, the presumption will 
 naturally be against those data as respects what the 
 pure reason shall affirm of another domain. We 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 199 
 
 cannot prove that its assertions, in the domain of 
 the practical reason are false, since the real data of 
 the practical reason are beyond our conception ; but 
 since it deceives us elsewhere where we can verify 
 things, its verdicts must be, to say the least, received 
 with caution in the realm where we cannot verify 
 anything at all. 
 
 But in spite of everything, it remains true that if 
 Kant was not to sacrifice the practical reason en- 
 tirely (pragmatism), he could not attain his ends 
 without calling in a noumenal world. And it is 
 consequently also true that, if they reject this nou- 
 menal world, and yet continue to maintain the 
 claims of practical reason, the pragmatists ought, 
 logically, to reject the science which bases itself on 
 pure reason. There is no room in the phenomenal 
 world alone for both the pure reason and the practi- 
 cal reason; to adopt one is to reject the other, to 
 affirm pragmatism is to reject science. The conclu- 
 sion is that Kant is bad, but that pragmatism is in- 
 finitely worse. Kant proposes a solution which is 
 not satisfactory ; but the pragmatists can no longer 
 even propose a solution, in so glaring a manner does 
 the contradiction between the two terms to be recon- 
 ciled appear in the way they are forced to state the 
 problem. To get rid of metaphysics is indeed to be 
 in agreement with the spirit of our times ; but since 
 the problem to be solved is such as it is, and since 
 pragmatists desire to solve it in Kant's way, to do 
 away with metaphysics is equivalent to cutting off 
 the branch on which we wish to sit. 
 
200 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 VI 
 
 Another aspect of modern pragmatism calls for 
 criticisms of a similar nature. In their desire to 
 avoid certain difficulties encountered by pragmatists 
 of former times, modern representatives, while gain- 
 ing certain positions, have lost others, which, every- 
 thing considered, were perhaps more important. 
 
 I have shown that the philosophy of Professor 
 James and of his fellow-thinkers is really a modern 
 scholasticism; for the results to be attained were 
 fixed in advance, inasmuch as a theory is judged 
 by its moral consequences. But I should perhaps 
 rather have styled it a Protestant scholasticism; for 
 pragmatism claims to be rationalistic in its religious 
 or metaphysical conception of the universe, and this 
 rationalism is a direct product of the religious refor- 
 mation of the sixteenth century. Catholic scholasti- 
 cism, taking the attitude of wise reserve, declared 
 that the good was what God wished, absolutely so, 
 man having no right of supervision whatever; in 
 fact the Church handled dogmas and discipline in 
 such a fashion that the divine will should appear to 
 correspond to the needs of the people's social organ- 
 ization which it had made to its task to realize, and 
 to whatever else was desirable for the benefit of 
 humanity. In spite of its efforts, however, reality 
 (the expression of the divine will) clashed so fre- 
 quently with reason and with human ideas of jus- 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 201 
 
 tice that justifiers of " the ways of God to men " 
 were always fain to declare the designs of Provi- 
 dence inscrutable, and that we should never consider 
 ourselves obliged to attune the will of God to the 
 human reason. Thus a " Theodicy," or " justifica- 
 tion of God," from the point of view of human 
 reason (and especially Avhen one remembers the 
 numerous difficulties removed by the acceptation of 
 the dogma of original sin) was considered un- 
 necessary, nay blasphemous. And these cautious 
 reserves, regarding the justice of the Almighty, 
 were, as a matter of fact, more needed in the middle 
 ages, in which society was but slightly organized 
 in comparison with our modern societies, and when 
 crime and injustice more abounded. Thus, it was 
 only at the epoch of the Reformation (after the 
 Catholic church had often dealt a little too much 
 after its own good pleasure with its supra-rational 
 God) that people began to ask God to show his 
 credentials, and to demand of him that he should 
 conform to the moral code of humanity. There was 
 a psychological reason for that, too. In Protes- 
 tantism, which does away with the church as an 
 intermediary between God and man, every one be- 
 came his own priest and his own theologian. God 
 manifested himself by the voice of conscience. But 
 this voice, to be recognized as divine and pre- 
 eminent, must satisfy the intellect, which is equiva- 
 lent to saying that God must be judged according 
 to man's reason and according to man's conception 
 
202 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 of morality, after the standard of the creature. 
 Only in case God would guarantee the moral order, 
 such as man conceived it, could man consent 
 to still adore him. The universe is divine, said 
 scholasticism; the universe (or the divine) must be 
 moral, says pragmatism; philosophia ancilla theo- 
 logies, said the middle ages; philosophia ancilla 
 ethicce, says the contemporary thinker. The era of 
 religious rationalism and of theodicies was opened, 
 — a not altogether easy task, which Protestantism 
 was forced to perform, and of which the work of 
 Leibnitz will remain the most typical monument. 
 In vain did Voltaire riddle with his arrows these 
 interesting attempts; nothing better was found up 
 to the time of the new theodicy of James, who is 
 certainly picturesque and original with his doctrine 
 of a strenuous universe preferable for man, one in 
 which man can heroically take " risks," thus account- 
 ing for certain human tragedies while reserving to 
 God his role of moral sovereign of the world. Ac- 
 cording to our modern ideas, his theory is most cer- 
 tainly worth those of Leibnitz and Wolf, although 
 still of precarious foothold. 
 
 Speaking generally, there is evidently an advan- 
 tage in the Protestant pragmatism in one sense. 
 If religion is to be in harmony with reason it will 
 the more satisfy rational beings, and they can turn 
 it to better account in the eyes of other men, and 
 induce them to accept its principles and practise 
 them. On the other hand, if the reason is authorized 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 203 
 
 to take a hand in the game, and, after a fashion, 
 dictate the conditions of the divine action, or if we 
 judge a religion as acceptable only on the recom- 
 mendation of the reason, there will always be things 
 absolutely unacceptable, even with the theory of 
 " risk." One cannot see how little children who 
 lack bread, and are dying of hunger because their 
 father has been killed by an accident in the mines 
 and because the mother is unable to make head 
 against the world, have had the benefit of any 
 " risk." Was not the laborer himself obliged to 
 take the risk because the owner of the mine was not 
 pragmatic enough to run the risk himself? And 
 then is it an equitable risk to impose on man this 
 struggle against the forces of nature, when in the 
 face of them he finds himself as helpless as a little 
 bird in a cyclone? A man may have all the genius 
 of Napoleon and be stupidly burned in a San Fran- 
 cisco fire, or another may be drowned in a founder- 
 ing ship like a rat in a trap, or be buried under the 
 lava of a Mount Pelee or a Vesuvius. To account 
 for such " risks," and so many more of a similar 
 kind in this " pragmatic " fashion, looks like a 
 rather poor joke; let us have Voltaire again; we 
 are ready for another Candide ! No. In such cases 
 faith in a God willing and acting independently of 
 every moral consideration, and of every rational stan- 
 dard, is infinitely more acceptable to man than the 
 pragmatists' God who is supposed to guarantee the 
 moral order. If from our point of view we cannot 
 
204 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 conceive of him as good, at least we are not forced 
 to conceive of him as wicked and odiously unjust. 
 He is a God, I repeat, who can be the object of 
 actual faith. The God of pragmatism only corre- 
 sponds to a spurious something called a '' reason- 
 able " faith. In other words, if we are consistent 
 with the rationalist principle of Protestant scholasti- 
 cism, — namely, pragmatism, — God can only be 
 worshipped by men who make very moderate moral 
 demands upon him; but this was not necessarily 
 so in the case of mediaeval scholasticism. And this 
 explains the conversion to Catholicism of certain 
 great Protestant souls of whom I have spoken, and 
 makes their action perfectly logical. Men like these 
 are not able, it is true, to conceive of a moral God 
 governing the world, since moral order does not 
 exist; yet if they aspire to a solution of the mys- 
 teries of life, nothing hinders them from adoring 
 an a-rational (or irrational), an a-moral (or im- 
 moral) God. Nemo credit nisi volens, St. Augus- 
 tine has well said. 
 
 Unquestionably we shall find pragmatists appeal- 
 ing to mystery in some cases, and, vice versa, 
 scholastics to reason; but / have to consider these 
 systems under their logical aspect; and it is evi- 
 dent that pragmatists pass beyond the limits of their 
 system in having recourse to the divine a-rational; 
 and scholastics pass beyond theirs in having re- 
 course to the divine rational. In practice numbers 
 of Protestants are really Catholics; it is only those 
 
PRAGMATISM OF THE MIDDLE AGES 205 
 
 who try to get their actions into harmony with their 
 philosophy who care for a conversion in the presence 
 of a notary, if I may venture the expression. The 
 small people will remain Catholics or Protestants 
 according to their place of birth, or will only change 
 for reasons foreign to philosophic discussions. 
 
 It must be admitted, nevertheless, that for the 
 pragmatists to take their stand upon these two prop- 
 ositions, (i) the rejection of metaphysics and (2) 
 rationalism, was putting themselves in full agree- 
 ment with the spirit of progress, and that even if, in 
 applying them, difficulties as great as those of the 
 past, or greater, rose in the path of the moralists, 
 pragmatism was but obeying a necessity in making 
 them hers. In short, we must admit that pragma- 
 tism, in taking the course it did, was within the logic 
 of events. Pragmatism is, willy-nilly, a struggle 
 against the scientific spirit, which causes all the 
 actions of men to be seen in a determinist light, and 
 is therefore capable of destroying the spirit of initi- 
 ative; which renders inconceivable the voice of con- 
 science as it is commonly interpreted; inconceivable 
 the idea of a moral sanction, on the part of God, of 
 the actions of men; inconceivable the idea of retri- 
 bution or punishment after death. ^ Now the prag- 
 
 ^ The very idea of retribution is inconceivable in the determinist 
 philosophy, but not, it must be borne in mind, the idea of life after 
 death. The warped judgment which identifies belief in the survival 
 of the soul with belief in retribution is a proof of the difficulty we 
 have in separating the logical point of view from the pragmatic point 
 of view. 
 
2o6 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 matic spirit, which sees that a society organized with- 
 out these doctrines ^ is going to destruction and 
 death, seeks to react. And in this reaction, address- 
 ing itself as it does to the human reason, it will have 
 more chance of triumphing without metaphysics and 
 with rationalism — that is to say, by making use 
 of precisely the same weapons that the intellectual- 
 ist philosophers employ, and by attempting to attack 
 them on their own ground; the struggle on meta- 
 physical ground had, besides, been declined by 
 scientists. 
 
 * Even if these doctrines were false, James says it in very plain 
 terms; I recall the passage of The Will to Believe (p. 126): "Just 
 as within the limits of theism some kinds are surviving others by 
 reason of their greater practical rationality ; so theism itself, by reason 
 of its practical rationality, is certain to survive all lower creeds. 
 Materialism and Agnosticism, even were they true, could never gain 
 universal acceptance, for they both alike give a solution of things 
 which is irrational to the practical third of our nature and in which 
 we can never volitionally feel at home." (Italics are mine.) 
 
PART III 
 
 PRAGMATISM AND TRUTH 
 
 La civilisation a He de tout temps une csuvre aristocratique^ 
 maintenue par un petit nombre. Uame des nations est une 
 chose aristocratique ; aussi cette ante doit etre guidee par un 
 certain nombre de pasteurs officiels formant la continuite de 
 la nation. Voila ce qu'une dynastie fait a merveille. Un 
 senat comme celui de Rome ou de Venise y suffit aussi. Des 
 institutions religieuses, sociales, pedagogiques comme celles 
 des villes grecques mieux encore. — Renan {Lettre a 
 Berthelot). 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF PRAGMATISM 
 
 Pragmatism will triumph, but because it is false, not because it 
 is true ; for, from the social point of view, the false is prefer- 
 able to the true. Proofs of this by facts. Democracy over- 
 runs the world more and more; America is to-day where 
 Europe will be to-morrow. How is it in America? The 
 intellectual class does not reproduce itself; immigrants, 
 sprung from inferior classes, overspread the country more 
 and more. For this population and for that of the civilized 
 world of the future, scientific determinism would be danger- 
 ous ; such a population would make a bad use of the truth. 
 Truth has nothing to do with life. 
 
 We have seen that pragmatism is in accordance with 
 the logic of events as far as the history of philos- 
 ophy is concerned, and I would now point out that 
 its success is in the same way in accord with the 
 logic of history in the general sense of that word. 
 
2o8 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 I have already pointed out that the American en- 
 vironment of Professor James is naturally one of 
 pragmatic aspiration. Continuing that line of 
 thought, I wish to point out that the pragmatic 
 spirit, once planted in a community, can be uprooted 
 only with extreme difficulty, the natural evolution 
 of things being even seconded and hastened by acci- 
 dental circumstances. And so it is that I come to 
 share in part the opinion of William James that 
 pragmatism as a philosophy will not be in fact so 
 transitory as other systems, and that it has " come 
 to stay." Only, while he thinks the reason of it to 
 be that pragmatism is truer than other philosophies, 
 I believe it is for precisely the opposite reason that 
 pragmatism will stay, namely, because it is false — 
 which I now proceed to explain. 
 
 One will have observed that pragmatism, if not 
 in the case of its originators at least in virtue of its 
 triumphs in the public mind, seems from the very 
 start to correspond essentially to the needs or the 
 desires of Anglo-Saxon peoples, while intellectual- 
 ism is more favored by the Latin nations. Pascal 
 himself, as author of the Pensees, is a favorite of 
 Protestant writers, and Rousseau is infinitely more 
 relished in Germanic than in Latin countries.^ One 
 might then be tempted at first sight to make prag- 
 matism a question of race. Yet the belief in race- 
 
 * The only exception as far as modern originators are concerned 
 would be the Italian Papini. I have shown elsewhere how erroneous 
 it was to count men like Poincare as pragmatists. 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PRAGMATISM 209 
 
 stocks goes on crutches in these days, and it seems 
 that we are rapidly coming to the idea that in the 
 greater number of cases races may well be effects 
 rather than causes. So it seems to me wise to give 
 over speculations of this kind. The more so that 
 the explanation by race in our special subject would 
 propound more problems than it could settle. Some 
 one may say that the Anglo-Saxon is individualis- 
 tic, the Latin not. But it happens that all the great 
 minds of the sixteenth century in France were open 
 and receptive to the individualistic spirit, which at 
 that time manifested itself in religious reforms, and 
 in many other departments of thought and life 
 showed more individualism than has been found in 
 Germany and in England even up to our day, — in 
 the domain of thought, at least. And, conversely, 
 you will find among Germanic peoples a much 
 greater respect for hierarchical (artificial) superi- 
 ority, in the political, social, and religious domain, 
 than among Latin peoples. Germany is still the 
 most aristocratically organized of all the countries 
 that have taken part in the march of civilization; 
 England is the land where the nobility has best pre- 
 served its prestige; and, with regard to America, 
 as all strangers who sojourn here for any length of 
 time are amused to observe, it would sometimes seem 
 as if no people has a more superstitious regard for 
 titles and reputations. 
 
 Similarly it is generally thought that southern 
 climes render men more passionate than those of the 
 
 14 
 
2 lo ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 north, — and this is probably true ; but in this case 
 it would seem to follow that the southern races 
 would need the more vigorous moral restraint that 
 pragmatism offers, while the people of the north, 
 colder, more the masters of themselves, might better 
 do without it. Yet the very opposite is the case; 
 the Latins have felt themselves very little drawn 
 toward pragmatism ; they have left it to the Anglo- 
 Saxons. So in order to account for the actual con- 
 ditions and philosophical preferences of the various 
 peoples of to-day, let us take our stand simply upon 
 clear, verifiable, purely objective circumstances. 
 
 Some of the following remarks have been made 
 before; but it is indispensable to formulate them 
 once more together with the new ones in order to 
 give clearness to the demonstration. 
 
 When the Renaissance aroused the minds of men 
 and favored individualism of thought, and, indi- 
 rectly, of action, the Latin nations had already 
 produced very advanced civilizations and acquired 
 deep-rooted traditions ; their social organization was, 
 in a way, definitively arrested (Italy), or else was 
 to still develop in the same direction as in the past, 
 the bud being there and the flower contained in the 
 bud (France). The consequences- of this awakening 
 of thought of the sixteenth century were therefore 
 of a relative importance only in the social sphere, — 
 of relative importance, I say, not null and void, for 
 the religious wars in France show clearly that things 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PRAGMATISM 211 
 
 were not yet so firmly settled that they were safe 
 from all shock. From the intellectual point of view, 
 the opposite was true ; for the Latin peoples, being 
 organized, and organized according to the principles 
 of authority exerted by the intellectual element over 
 the people at large, free thought, even at the time 
 of its appearance, remained almost isolated among 
 the elite in its effect. Hence philosophers had no 
 need of being too timid in their thought, and the 
 church had sufficient power to counterbalance in the 
 masses the effect of their ideas when they went too 
 far, and often, indeed, dealt with them with great 
 severity. 
 
 The Germanic races, on the contrary, were just 
 beginning to take part in the forward movement of 
 civilization at this critical moment when European 
 thought was renewing itself. In organizing them- 
 selves they took as their guide the principle put for- 
 ward by the Reformation ; namely, that nations were 
 composed of individually responsible units, and that 
 as respects their moral life, they were entrusted to 
 their own individual authority under the name of 
 conscience, representing the voice of God. Under 
 these conditions the question of consequences, the 
 pragmatic question, became of primordial impor- 
 tance for the philosopher, and he had to take it into 
 account in his speculations. The result was an intel- 
 lectual atmosphere of a special sort (mitigation of 
 pure thought and pragmatic preoccupation) from 
 which even philosophers of the stamp of Kant could 
 
2 1 2 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 not escape. England, in its island, carried forward 
 still farther the system of individualism and with it 
 its consequences. The masses with their low level of 
 individualism need authority to hinder them from 
 going astray, and it was necessary to bolster up the 
 authority of the Protestant churches, so loose by 
 principle in this regard, by a personal ethics ad hoc} 
 Writers like Sterne, Richardson, Addison, and all 
 the religious authors, and the authors of the roman- 
 tic, or emotional, school, of the eighteenth century 
 in England, toiled at this task, while the philosophers 
 tried not to mar their efforts. 
 
 But this was not all. Still another revolution took 
 place, corresponding to the religious reformation. 
 Society reorganized itself on the other side of the 
 Atlantic, shaking off even the few "Latin" tradi- 
 tions which had so far been able to pass over into 
 Germany and England through art and philosophy. 
 In the New World democratic ideas were freer to 
 manifest themselves than anywhere else ; the " plain 
 people " affirmed their rights more and more, and 
 the social equilibrium ceased almost wholly to de- 
 pend upon an elite whom the masses were supposed 
 to follow ; the balance of power passed over to these 
 masses themselves. This change in the social centre 
 of gravity was of the highest importance ; pragma- 
 
 * I am here reverting in thought to the luminous pages of Leslie 
 Stephen in his History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century^ 
 in which he admirably elucidates the well-known love of compromise 
 between pure thought and practical thought that characterizes Eng- 
 lish thinkers (I, p. 85). See, e. g., IX, iv, 43 (vol. II, pp. 357-369)- 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PRAGMATISM 213 
 
 tism recommended itself more and more as the phi- 
 losophy to adopt, since it is for the masses now that 
 a philosophy is needed. 
 
 And now, mark it well, this renovation did not 
 occur once for all, at the epoch (rather long, by the 
 way) of the organization of the representative mod- 
 ern nation, but it is a change always going on. Not 
 only would it be difficult to maintain that the Ameri- 
 can civilization has definitely shaped itself ; not only 
 have the few representatives of European aristoc- 
 racy long ago disappeared, but the families of those 
 who founded the nation are rapidly disappearing; 
 and even American families of several generations 
 are barely holding their own. This is a fact only 
 too well known to-day, and the fiery homilies of 
 President Roosevelt upon the " suicide of the race" 
 are still fresh in all memories. Yet we must note 
 that it is especially the cultivated classes who have 
 few or no children,^ and the university authorities 
 have occasionally sounded the alarm (for example, 
 Ex-President Eliot of Harvard University). The 
 author of these pages knows intimately an institu- 
 tion of higher education having thirty-seven profes- 
 sors (without counting a pretty large number of 
 tutors, lecturers, and assistants, none of whom, how- 
 ever, are married) ; of the thirty-seven professors 
 
 * If I am supported in my opinion that the intellectual classes are 
 more desirable in a nation than others, then the problem of depopula- 
 tion seems to me infinitely more serious in America than in France. 
 We forget far too often this element of the subject in our discussions. 
 Coarse pennies and pieces of gold are precisely equivalent in the eyes 
 of our economists. What a singular aberration of mind ! 
 
214 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 twenty-two are celibates; and, of the fifteen mar- 
 ried, three have two children, three have one child, 
 nine no children at all. The small salaries are one 
 of the principal causes of this state of things, and 
 the slight esteem in which the people hold thinkers 
 is responsible for the small salaries. But in any 
 event, even if Americans of family and the culti- 
 vated classes should nearly hold their own in births, 
 their relative importance would not the less on that 
 account constantly diminish for (i) the families 
 of the people are increasing, and (2) the popula- 
 tion grows only through immigration. Viscount 
 d'Avenel has recently given us some pieces of infor- 
 mation at first-hand in his article in the Revue des 
 Deux Mondes of January i, 1908. We see by it 
 how rapidly the changes are taking place, and how 
 soon that which is called " American " in the popu- 
 lation of the United States threatens to be submerged. 
 Before 1880 there were only 280,000 immigrants a 
 year; after 1902, 800,000; after 1905 the million 
 mark was passed; in 1907 the number reached a 
 million and a half.^ In the great majority of cases 
 these immigrants belong to the uncultivated classes, 
 who in their native land have been used to looking at 
 life in its material aspect of a relentless " struggle 
 for existence," a conception which the new environ- 
 
 * I have before me extracts from the statistics of New Hampshire. 
 In 1870 this state had 318,000 inhabitants, of whom 273,000 were of 
 American birth and 45,000 of foreign birth. In 1900 the natives num- 
 ber only 243,000 and the foreigners 168,000. Figures are cited of a 
 typical village in which there were registered, for the year, 29 mar- 
 riages, 25 births, and 40 deaths. 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PRAGMATISM 215 
 
 ment rather seems to sanction. To all this must be 
 added that the quality of the immigrants instead of 
 growing better seems rather to deteriorate. For- 
 merly the Irish, coarse perhaps, but intelligent, and 
 the Germans, possibly poor but well educated, formed 
 a large proportion of the new comers. From 1840 
 to i860 there were counted in one hundred immi- 
 grants forty-three Irish and thirty-five Germans; 
 to-day (1901-1906) in every hundred immigrants 
 only five per cent are of those nationalities. On the 
 other hand, immigration from other countries, up 
 to that time scarcely represented at all, increases 
 steadily. From 1901 to 1906, 28 per cent are Ital- 
 ians, 2.^ per cent Austrians from the more remote 
 provinces, and 20 per cent Russians and Poles. Of 
 course, the latent virile energy of these people pro- 
 duces even to-day superb results. But they cannot 
 escape the action of the environment upon them; 
 and, as certain ones of them reach in their turn the 
 top of the social ladder, they become sterile in their 
 turn. The result of this invasion of the inferior 
 element, gaining a sort of refinement naturally pro- 
 duced by comfort and wealth, but never arriving at 
 the degree of culture and distinction that the human- 
 itarian civilization of Europe gives to the chosen 
 few, James expresses in these words : " Never were 
 as many men of a decidedly empiricist proclivity in 
 existence as there are at the present day." {Prag- 
 matism, p. 14.) 
 
 The repercussion of all this is that liberty of 
 
2i6 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 thought is less to-day than formerly, for the reason 
 set forth above; namely, that in an environment 
 v^hich only seeks in ideas means of action, and of 
 action with a view to success in practical life, there 
 are certain ideas that ought not to be thrown into 
 circulation. Conclusion : we must muzzle thought. 
 The great era of the American nation, in political 
 power, in social importance, is probably still to come ; 
 we have as yet seen only its preliminary manifesta- 
 tions; to-morrow will eclipse to-day as to-day has 
 eclipsed yesterday. But the classic period, from the 
 intellectual, literary, and philosophic point of view 
 (we may except perhaps painting, sculpture, archi- 
 tecture, the arts where thought is not expressed di- 
 rectly and need have no bearing on social morals), 
 is very likely passed. Even an Emerson, a brilliant 
 genius perhaps, but thoroughly commonplace, has 
 an influence to-day only because he is dead. If he 
 should return and propose his undogmatic ideas, he 
 would scarcely succeed. Or if a pastor should sud- 
 denly decide to leave the church, as Emerson did, 
 and preach lay sermons, had such an one the same 
 charm of speech, the same fetching eloquence that 
 Emerson had, he would certainly come to grief. Or 
 at most he would . be asked to give some lectures 
 before the bourgeois public of the " societies for 
 ethical culture." The man who has succeeded in 
 getting a large following is Lyman Abbott, who 
 preaches active Christianity, Christianity disencum- 
 bered of secondary dogmas, but which preserving 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PRAGMATISM 217 
 
 all the pragmatic dogmas, which since Kant are 
 called, in philosophic terms, the postulates of the 
 " practical reason.'' 
 
 There is in all this one piece of testimony that 
 cannot be refuted : the churches are not breaking up, 
 ethical societies are no success. I repeat myself ; but 
 the reason is that if others find it to their advantage 
 to leave this very patent fact in the shade, I find it 
 mine not to let it be forgotten. Let us, however, be 
 conscientious, and remember that one of the most 
 famous books in the conflict between faith and 
 science has been published in i\merica, — J. W. 
 Draper's History of the Conflict Betzveen Religion 
 and Science (1875). But there is no doubt that 
 this book never had in America the success it had in 
 Europe; it would not be published to-day and it 
 would never be written to-day.^ 
 
 ^ Perhaps some one may mention, in opposition to this statement, 
 the name of Robert G. Ingersoll, the eloquent lawyer who for some 
 years travelled about America giving noisy lectures against Christian- 
 ity and religion. He is an exception that proves the rule. He was 
 eloquent, and people liked to hear him. But he hardly had any fol- 
 lowing, and was completely forgotten immediately after his death in 
 1899. If you ask to-day for one of his books you will hardly be able 
 to find it. I made a study of his work in the Revue de Theologie et 
 de Philosophie, of 1899 (Vol. 32, p. 512). 
 
 With regard to Andrew D. WTiite's famous History of the Warfare 
 of Science with Theology (1896), it does not by any means belong to 
 the same class as Draper's book although this confusion is oftentime 
 made even by educated people. As plainly stated in the "Introduc- 
 tion," White's purpose is, in fighting against Dogmatism, to help the 
 cause of religion. "My hope is to aid, and even if it be but a little, 
 in the gradual and healthful dissolving away of this mass of unreason, 
 that the stream of religion pure and undejiled may flow on broad and 
 clear, a blessing to humanity " (p. vi). And got only religion but 
 
2i8 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 All this indicates : first, that an objective philoso- 
 phy grows more and more impossible; second, that 
 America herself will choose another kind — one 
 non-objective — through social interest; and, third, 
 that it is better she should so choose, for, under the 
 circumstances, and considering human nature, it is 
 better for man to feel responsible for his actions and 
 be bitted and curbed by religion in order that society 
 may escape anarchy. I wish to emphasize this : I 
 fully agree with William James that materialism and 
 agnosticism, even if they were true, would " never 
 be universally adopted." {Will to Believe, p. 126.) 
 I understand very well the solicitude of intelligent 
 people, and of upright magistrates of all countries, 
 who see not without terror the ideas of responsibility 
 and of moral conscience being dissipated by the mod- 
 ern criticism which is maladroitly put at the dispo- 
 sition of the masses; for it is the church's loss of 
 influence that disorganizes the machinery of society, 
 renders men indifferent to commercial honesty, to 
 the moral obligation of the marriage bond, which 
 
 Christianity he defends heartily: "Far from wishing to injure Christi- 
 anity, we . . . hoped to promote it" (p. vii). He himself distinguishes 
 his book from Draper's by saying: "He (Draper) regarded the 
 struggle as one between Science and Religion. I believed then, and I 
 believe now, that it was a struggle between Science and Dogmatic 
 Theology" (p. ix). Finally: "My conviction is that Science, though 
 it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on biblical 
 texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand with Re- 
 ligion. . . . Thus, may the declaration of Micah as to the require- 
 ments of Jehovah, the definition by St. James of pure religion and 
 undefiled, and above all the precepts and ideals of the blessed Founder 
 of Christianity himself be brought to bear more and more efifectively 
 on mankind " (p. xii). . . . ■ 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PRAGMATISM 219 
 
 develops social egoism and frivolity. Life belongs 
 not to the philosopher who says primo philosophari 
 deinde vivere, but to humanity which says, as a mass, 
 primo vivere deinde philosophari. And why should 
 the philosopher — and it is above all of the prag- 
 matic philosopher that I am speaking — not accept 
 this? What right has he to force truth on people? 
 Why should he meddle with their discussions ? 
 
 What silly prejudice is this that truth has any- 
 thing whatever to do with practical life? It was 
 necessary to have reached our epoch of artless de- 
 mocracy to be able seriously to affirm such enormi- 
 ties that a man can be at the same time popular and 
 profound, and that all that is beautiful is good. 
 No! it is not a crime to propose expediency as the 
 principle of life : the conflict begins only when it is 
 positively proposed to harmonize philosophy and 
 life. If humanity can be happier without philos- 
 ophy, it has good warrant for scorning philosophy. 
 
 On the other hand, it should be clearly understood 
 that the man who is to bear worthily the name of 
 philosopher is he who looks the problem in the face, 
 in its " philosophic " aspect ; it is the man who: per- 
 emptorily refuses to play the role of making his 
 confreres believe, and perhaps himself too, that, truth 
 is lie and that lie is truth; and finally, if I must 
 speak out my whole thought, it is he who declares 
 pragmatism, in so far as it poses as a philosophy, to 
 be a hoax. 
 
 It would perhaps be more agreeable to think that 
 
220 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 life and truth go hand in hand ; but if, after all, such 
 is not the case, is it the fault of man ? Pragmatism 
 seems to make philosophy responsible in the matter. 
 What prodigious naivete! Philosophy states the 
 facts, that is all. And if there are people — and 
 there evidently are, their number is legion — of too 
 sensitive intellect to endure this lack of harmony 
 between philosophy and practical experience, be- 
 tween truth and pragmatism, what good does it do 
 to talk to them about it? A soldier may be a hun- 
 dred times as intelligent as his superior, yet, for 
 reason of discipline, it is highly desirable that he 
 should act as if he believed in him. Leaving to one 
 side ideas of God and of immortality, concerning 
 which we can know nothing, and which belong to 
 the domain of faith, let us suppose that the philoso- 
 pher reaches the conviction that all our fine notions 
 of duty, of conscience, of honor, are intrinsically only 
 words and fool-traps — I say, let him keep the thing 
 to himself. Nothing obliges him to propagate his 
 conviction. In fact, it would be wrong for him to 
 do so, for he would suggest to people, who otherwise 
 would not have dreamed of doing it, to go and inves- 
 tigate the matter and worry over ideas that make 
 them unhappy. The half -philosophers who are really 
 conscientious will be much happier in remaining ig- 
 norant of all these things; and the unscrupulous half- 
 philosophers will be less mischievous in not knowing 
 them. As to the philosopher himself he will lose his 
 freedom because he wanted to think aloud. 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PRAGMATISM 221 
 
 This is the thing that it is important we should 
 get well into our heads — that it is not the philoso- 
 phers, but the pragmatists who insist at all hazards 
 on consecrating as "truth " simple principles of social 
 conduct. How much better it would be if they 
 would only remain pragmatists root and branch and 
 to the end of the chapter ! Why burden themselves 
 with philosophy which asks nothing of them ? Why 
 ask that philosophy permit them to organize life 
 on the plan of " expediency " ? Indeed, if they obey 
 what it tells us it will prohibit them from so organiz- 
 ing it. But why should that concern them? Let 
 them not lose their time in trying to reconcile at any 
 price the irreconcilable. Let them be pragmatic; 
 that is well, it is human, it is Christian; but let 
 them not try to be pragmatic philosophers, for that 
 cannot be. 
 
 To sum up: pragmatism will carry the day, not 
 because it is true, — for, whatever in other respects 
 the true may be, pragmatism certainly is false, — 
 but because it is desirable. And I do not fear to cite 
 here the dictum of Boutroux in his volume Science 
 et Religion. " The victory does not go to that one 
 of two living men who best knows how to string 
 syllogisms together, but to him whose vitality is 
 the strongest" (p. 343). The want creates the 
 means. Pragmatism put itself forward as a system 
 of morals for the masses, and probably will continue 
 to impose itself more and more. Professor James 
 and his fellows have formulated it, they have ren- 
 
222 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 dered us a service. They afterwards sanctioned it, 
 and they were not wrong. They finally consecrated 
 it as truth: there they violated logic, they insulted 
 truth, and discredited their own proper work.^ 
 
 * Let me add also that tJie examination of the pragmatic idea in 
 religion has its well-marked place in James's work on the psychology 
 of religion (cf. The Varieties of Religious Experience, xviii, pp. 443- 
 445). But to consider the excellence of the moral results of religious 
 pragmatism as a proof of its theological value will never be a sufficient 
 argument from the logical point of view. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SALVATION FROM PRAGMATIC PHILOSOPHY POSSIBLE 
 BUT NOT PROBABLE 
 
 Final question: Was it necessary that matters should go so far? 
 Perhaps not. The Latin civilizations had observed the prin- 
 ciple of intellectual inequality which separated the social 
 strata. Philosophy remained the appanage of an elite and 
 without much danger. Even in the nineteenth century after 
 the French Revolution, tradition maintained pretty well 
 the distinction between the intellectuals and the people — 
 even in the domain of art. A Victor Hugo, for instance, will 
 counterbalance a Balzac or a Stendhal. Yet to-day the 
 clamor about the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons which is 
 interpreted as meaning the superiority of democracy to intel- 
 lectual aristocracy will, if it carries the day, force humanity 
 to lay its own head under the axe. 
 
 I HOPE I have clearly explained that what has forced 
 the introduction of pragmatism among us is a false 
 conception of individualism, — a conception which 
 has reached its climax in that absurdity, social de- 
 mocracy. For the sake of an ideal, generous withal, 
 though Utopian, — that of elevating all men to the 
 dignity of thinking beings, — and which ends by de- 
 claring the non-responsible, responsible thinking is 
 not only not forbidden to the masses, not only is 
 permitted to them, but is imposed upon them. The 
 result of this is that, in order to safeguard this fine 
 ideal on the one hand and social order on the other, 
 thinkers have had to confine themselves to a philos- 
 
224 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 ophy accessible to the crowd. In other words, in 
 order to allow thought to those who have no business 
 with it, we are obliged to take it from those in whose 
 hands it would not only be harmless, but occasionally 
 very desirable for the sake of the general welfare. 
 In this sense, therefore, James is perhaps not wrong 
 in saying that pragmatism has come to stay, even in 
 philosophy. It is not impossible that the thinker will 
 take into account more and more social needs, that 
 he will not decry pragmatism but will simply hold 
 to peace. 
 
 It would be difficult for a philosopher to cease to 
 think ; but at least he would abstain henceforth from 
 expressing the result of his meditations. 
 
 But was it necessary that things should come to 
 such a pass as this? No, not necessary! At the 
 farthest we might say it was inevitable. 
 
 That which men have agreed in modern time to 
 call the Latin civilizations had developed, I have ex- 
 plained why, a social organization in which human 
 rights could be safeguarded and philosophy not be 
 sacrificed. They were in advance of the civiliza- 
 tions of antiquity in that they had recognized the 
 moral equality of men, in the sense in which this 
 can be and ought to be recognized. In principle the 
 church considered the humble, the feeble, the simple- 
 minded as having the same rights in life as the 
 great, the strong, the intelligent, — a doctrine which 
 it expressed by opening the gates of paradise to all 
 indifferently. But, on the other hand, while grant- 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE, NOT PROBABLE 225 
 
 ing these moral rights to all, she remained faithful 
 to the great principle of Aristotle, the inequality of 
 men — in fact, to a simple observation of the gifts 
 of nature. Those privileged by nature must have 
 more occasions to develop their talents, hence more 
 freedom, and, in a sense, more rights. But this 
 larger number of rights was only a result of a larger 
 number of duties laid upon the select few. On the 
 part of society that was tantamount to placing re- 
 sponsibilities where in equity they ought to be placed. 
 The church of the middle ages had even favored 
 the formation of classes according to rank of birth ; 
 and one must be blinded by our " progressive " 
 modern ideas not to see what there was fundamen- 
 tally just in this conception, and one must also for- 
 get all that science, of which we are so proud, and 
 which assures us in every possible way of the in- 
 fluence of physical and moral heredity, of environ- 
 ment, of education, etc. At the beginning of a 
 society, of course, the strongest acquire nobility 
 not by right of birth, but in virtue of natural supe- 
 riority ; yet afterwards these qualities may be trans- 
 mitted from parents to children; and, while we 
 admit the possibility of very numerous exceptions, 
 it was but natural that the descendants of those 
 strong men of the early days should be puissant in 
 their turn, and, after numbers of happily arranged 
 marriages, should in the lapse of time form a select 
 class. It was natural again, and not unjust, that 
 those less highly endowed by nature should re- 
 
 15 
 
226 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 linquish to the nobles some privileges from the 
 exercise of which all would derive profit. The 
 middle ages, moreover, did not ignore the caprices 
 of heredity, especially in the realm of the intellect; 
 it renewed this intellectual class, as indicated, by cir- 
 cumstances, garnering recruits everywhere, among 
 the poor and the rich, the powerful and the humble, 
 and rearing up all in common in its schools. In a 
 word, the principle of selection was as methodically 
 and as equitably observed as possible. It was a deli- 
 cate task, but they took account of everything, — 
 the fundamental inequality of men, the facts of 
 heredity, and conditions of environment. They 
 were at all times ready to elevate exceptional men 
 and women from unfavorable, humble conditions 
 of existence; and it is a vain boast to affirm that the 
 world had to wait until the nineteenth century be- 
 fore welcoming superior minds of all classes into 
 the aristocracy of man. Men like Froissart, Amyot, 
 Rabelais, Boileau, Voiture, Voltaire, Rousseau, are 
 there in France to prove the contrary. Think of the 
 court of Margaret of Navarre, of the Hotel de 
 Rambouillet, of the " salons " of the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries. And if even the noblesse 
 had been absolutely exclusive (it was often so, that 
 was human), it is certainly not necessarily so, and 
 the principle would not be injured by its non- 
 observance. Again, if those who tried to be fair to 
 all were frequently baffled by difficulties, at least the 
 sensible idea was there. There is some truth in this 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE, NOT PROBABLE 227 
 
 word of Barbey d'Aurevilly : " The middle ages 
 have not agitated the question of the organization 
 of labor, because they possessed that organization." 
 The masses did not interfere with the elite nor the 
 elite with the masses ; rather they aided each other, 
 the masses doing for the elite that which asked only 
 mediocre talents, and the elite doing for the masses 
 that which asked a certain superiority. A concep- 
 tion, this, much higher in principle at least, to the 
 indolent method of our day, which consists in not 
 aiding nature in anything, under the pretext of not 
 thwarting her; the result of which is that you have 
 continually to begin again at the beginning in the 
 formation of an elite, and that the brain of human- 
 ity, if I may so say, is constantly maintained at the 
 level attained at the time when the democratic ideal 
 came into vogue. We who make so great a boast of 
 understanding nature better than the middle ages, 
 we act as if we had not the shadow of a true idea 
 about it. Suppose, please, for a moment that the 
 social organization, such as adopted before the 
 French Revolution, had continued and still existed 
 in our day ; and suppose — to return to our special 
 topic — that free thought had reached (as in fact 
 it has) the idea of determinism in nature; it would 
 not have to deny itself and deliver itself over to 
 the acrobatic feats of pragmatism in order to per- 
 suade itself that it is mistaken, because these prin- 
 ciples are dangerous for the masses; it would have 
 accepted the consequences, and, from the practical 
 
228 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 point of view, would have formulated a rule of con- 
 duct adapted to these masses, — a rule which would 
 have satisfied the said masses, and, at the same time, 
 have sacrificed in no respect either the dignity of 
 thought or the pragmatic advantages which would 
 have resulted therefrom for all. 
 
 All this (an opponent might say) is perhaps very 
 fine in theory, but the experience of the ages is 
 against it. I reply that experience has here no argu- 
 mentative force whatever. If a physicist does not 
 know how to deal with the law of gravity, does that 
 imply that the law does not exist? If a poet does 
 not succeed in making good verses by the rules of 
 prosody, shall we draw the conclusion that these 
 rules are bad? It remains certain that the system 
 of aristocracy is based upon data of nature which 
 we cannot change, — the inequality of men, for ex- 
 ample, — while the system of democracy is in oppo- 
 sition to these same data of nature. That society 
 has not succeeded in adapting its organization to 
 these facts does not abolish the facts ; and it is hard 
 to see how, if men have not succeeded with a system 
 basing itself on facts, they will succeed better with 
 a system that ignores them. That under the sway 
 of past aristocracies there were formidable abuses 
 we do not dream of disputing, — sickening, disgust- 
 ing abuses, arising from the fact that the great and 
 the powerful abused privileges which they could 
 have employed for the benefit of all, but which they 
 employed solely for their own selfish advantage. 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE, NOT PROBABLE 229 
 
 But if there had been a hundred times more abuses, 
 it would still prove, after all, only that the powerful 
 are unscrupulous, or that the measures taken to 
 secure privileges to a true elite were not sufficiently 
 severe, or that the application of the principle is less 
 easy than had been thought, — by no means, how- 
 ever, that the principle is wrong. The way people 
 usually argue on this point is this : " A large num- 
 ber of apples on the tree are decayed ; therefore the 
 tree can only produce decayed fruit " ; and so the 
 tree was cut down. How childish! The French 
 Revolution was perhaps not wrong in saying that 
 the line of demarcation then existing between the 
 elite and the crowd, and which was the product of 
 historical development, was false — or, rather, falsi- 
 fied (warped from its true course) ; but it vastly 
 overstepped the conclusions of the premises by assur- 
 ing men that there was no need of separation, and 
 by replacing aristocracy by democracy. What was 
 needed was, not to reject, but to better interpret, the 
 data of nature and the conception of aristocracy ; to 
 deny, perchance, the aristocracy of birth, but to 
 maintain the aristocracy of the intellect, in the broad 
 sense of that word (in politics and commerce as well 
 as in the sciences, the arts, and philosophy). We 
 can perfectly well conceive of the French Revolu- 
 tion reaching an excellent result without terminat- 
 ing in democracy. And I am not sure but that an 
 intellectual aristocracy might not even have emerged, 
 after the shock of the Revolution, from the old 
 
230 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 aristocracy ; only for that, it would have been neces- 
 sary for a calmer examination of existing conditions 
 at the end of the eighteenth century to have pre- 
 vailed. As a matter of fact, the aristocracy of the 
 gown was already an aristocracy of the intellect, 
 which had taken its place beside that of the ancien. 
 regime, while the noblesse of the sword itself, which 
 for a long time had had no reason-for-being, might 
 perhaps have been transformed. The nobility had 
 the leisure and, consequently, the power to cultivate 
 itself; it was there that the ground was most favor- 
 able to bring about an intellectual aristocracy, which 
 might have again more or less corresponded to one 
 of birth. Freedom from harrassing cares about 
 material things, in the case of a well-born person, 
 goes that much towards the development of the 
 superior faculties, and after some generations, this 
 circumstance alone bestows some exquisite refine- 
 ment that is not acquired in the first generation. 
 Compare the work of Vigny or of Lamartine with 
 that of Hugo or Balzac. In the first two you feel 
 the true aristocracy of mind ; in the two latter, there 
 is something strong, perhaps, but unpolished. One 
 may object : " But it is a fact that previous to the 
 nineteenth century the intellectual class has not 
 sprung from the aristocracy; the great names in 
 France, for example, are Rabelais, Corneille, Mol- 
 iere, Voltaire, Rousseau." Very well. And yet 
 we must not forget Montaigne, D'Aubigne, Des- 
 cartes, Saint-Simon, Mme. de Sevigne, Retz, La 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE, NOT PROBABLE 231 
 
 Rochefoucauld, Montesquieu, Buffon, and how many 
 others, less popular only because more refined. And 
 then don't the plebeians owe anything to the nobil- 
 ity? Yes, almost everything. They are indebted 
 to them for a public; and that is something inesti- 
 mable, for, in order to write, there must be two, — 
 the author and the reader. Compare the literature 
 that aristocratic France has given to the world with 
 that of democratic America, where the two most 
 original authors, Edgar Poe and Walt Whitman, 
 are the very ones that are taboo. 
 
 But let us resume our argument. In France 
 tradition was strongly entrenched withal, and the 
 triumph of democracy was not immediate; after 
 the Revolution of 1789 there was needed that of 
 1830, of 1848, of 1 87 1, in the sphere of politics. 
 Again, from the social point of view, with the assist- 
 ance of Catholic tradition, a kind of equilibrium was 
 established and such Utopian geniuses as Saint- 
 Simon, Fourier, and Cabot forced the leaders of the 
 nation to bestow more and more attention upon the 
 masses, without, however, going as far as to place 
 them in power. Finally, in the intellectual sphere, 
 there above all, a tacit agreement had very soon been 
 reached and was long maintained (is even to-day 
 not wholly abandoned) by which it is understood 
 that superior minds shall be left undisturbed in their 
 speculations, and that inferior individuals shall have 
 as guides popular leaders of a pragmatic tendency. 
 There was even established a bourgeois literature. 
 
232 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 an art adapted to mediocre understandings, a popu- 
 lar science, etc. A Victor Hugo was the ransom 
 for a Taine or a Renan, an Alexandre Dumas was 
 made good by a Stendhal or a Barbey d'Aurevilly, 
 a Coppee was to be tolerated in exchange for a 
 Leconte de Lisle or a Guyau, a Jules Verne balanced 
 a Claude Bernard or a Berthelot. Clear across the 
 nineteenth century the two currents hold their par- 
 allel course. This was very well, and every one was 
 satisfied. The one class was free to develop the 
 faculties that honor man, was free to think; the 
 other received panem et circenses in larger and 
 larger amounts, and even (if they desired it) the 
 semblance of thought.^ Nothing hindered men 
 from profiting by all the advantages of material 
 civilization, the discoveries of science, the simpli- 
 fication of life, etc. A society thus organized could 
 go far ; it allowed for the natural inequalities among 
 men, thus rendering the passage from one class to 
 another easy; it could satisfy every one; it did not 
 make necessary the pragmatic lie, it did not in any 
 way whatever sacrifice a select class to the inferior 
 part of humanity. 
 
 " Then you propose the system of castes? " Yes, 
 why not, if it is in all points preferable to the other? 
 Are we going, because the democratic ideal is per- 
 haps more alluring, — namely, the theory that all 
 men are alike superior in intelligence, — to adopt 
 
 * Those ideas are further developed in Appendix B, "Literature 
 and the Moral Code." 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE, NOT PROBABLE 233 
 
 it forever when it completely ignores reality and 
 has the most disagreeable consequences, condemn- 
 ing the human race to cut its own head? And, in- 
 deed, are we not at this point more pragmatic than 
 the pragmatists? The prejudice against certain 
 lines of social demarcation is solely due to a false 
 association of ideas. We are still basing ourselves 
 on that superficial principle of the French Revolu- 
 tion, that a master is necessarily bad and that a ser- 
 vant is necessarily good. Such silly theories as 
 these may answer to the purpose of a Victor Hugo 
 or of demagogues. But certainly nobody would 
 ask proof of the fact that a good master is as much 
 within the natural possibilities of things as a bad 
 servant or slave. The principle of equality was 
 never so frankly, so radically, proclaimed as in the 
 United States, when in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century they emancipated the negro race ; and since 
 then the question is which to choose of two solu- 
 tions of the enormous difficulty created by this re- 
 grettable act: whether to get rid of the blacks or 
 reduce them again to slavery (without giving the 
 name "slave" to the thing). Whichever solution 
 is chosen it is a confession of the impossibility of 
 consistent democracy. 
 
 I have already alluded to the circumstance that 
 the countries where the democratic principle did not 
 prevail produced, intellectually speaking, superior 
 civilizations. As to moral superiority, we are still 
 waiting to see. This passage from one of the popu- 
 
234 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 lar articles of Professor James on pragmatism would 
 be in good place again here : " Democracy is on its 
 trial, and no one knows how it will stand the ordeal. 
 Abounding about us are pessimistic prophets. . . . 
 Who can be absolutely certain that failure may not 
 be the career of democracy? Nothing future is quite 
 secure; states enough have inw^ardly rotted; and 
 democracy as a whole may undergo self-poisoning. 
 But, on the other hand, democracy is a kind of reli- 
 gion, and we are bound not to admit its failure. . . . 
 Utopias are the noblest exercise of human reason, 
 and no one with a spark of reason in him will sit 
 down fatalistically before the croakers picture." 
 (McChtre's Magazine, February, 1908, pp. 420, 
 421.) Is not this a sort of confession? ^ In fact, is 
 not pragmatism a movement which is looked to to 
 remedy the evils of democracy, — '' bossism," com- 
 mercial dishonesty, the breaking up of family life 
 and indifference to the marriage bond? It would 
 not be very hard to show that the difficulties in which 
 the great pragmatic nation is floundering to-day all 
 come from persistent, wilful, and blind ignorance 
 of the inequalities of men, and from the refusal to 
 bow to any social system which recognizes aristoc- 
 racy as a fact that cannot with impunity be denied. 
 Instead of submitting to nature, they are positively 
 
 ^ Other leaders of the American people have occasionally discussed 
 democracy in these latter years, often less optimistic than James, — 
 Bishop Potter, of New York, for instance. In April, 1908, Bishop 
 Mackay-Smith of Philadelphia created a great excitement by a speech 
 made at an important club of the city in which he exercises his function. 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE, NOT PROBABLE 235 
 
 bent on forcing her to submit to us at the very point 
 where we are weakest, or, at any rate, where we are 
 least disposed to act (the artificial selection of the 
 species, physically and morally). What is "boss- 
 ism " ? It is the triumphing of the aristocratic prin- 
 ciple, in spite of democracy, which attempts to stop 
 it with its '' No admittance." This particular form 
 of it is attended by such disastrous results only be- 
 cause the " boss " is neither recognized by law nor 
 responsible to the law; and so rogues can play the 
 role as well as others. What does the commercial 
 dishonesty of the masses mean? It means that 
 mediocre-minded people, in place of believing in a 
 moral and religious consciousness, believe in democ- 
 racy, — that is to say, every one, whether he is 
 stupid or intelligent, may violate the regulations or 
 the laws, whereas, in fact, only superior minds are 
 above artificial human legislation; regulations are 
 invented for the crowd; if everybody was intelli- 
 gent enough to behave himself without them, these 
 rules would not exist. What means also this relax- 
 ing of the moral life of the family (not specially 
 meaning by that sensuality) ? It means that people 
 who are not fit to manage their lives themselves 
 nevertheless arrogate to themselves that right, and 
 disorganize society (without, by the way, attaining 
 more happiness). To put it briefly: it is every- 
 where regarded as very natural to-day to bestow 
 upon the croivd those privileges of which the aris- 
 tocracy of former times was accused of not knowing 
 how to make good use. 
 
236 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 And, finally, what shall be said of the problem of 
 corporations or trusts in democracies? Nowhere 
 more than in this matter are the contradictions of 
 our present social faith more glaring. We have 
 seen a man of good intentions, at the head of his 
 great people, all astray in pitiable and inextricable 
 difficulties ; by nature he would have been a believer 
 in aristocratic individualism, and would have fought 
 for the freedom of action of the great financial 
 leaders of his country; but as a servant of the 
 people who believed himself convinced of the supe- 
 riority of democracy, he waged war against those 
 financiers to the utmost of his power; the lack of 
 a rational basis of action has rendered him a fanatic 
 in this matter (it has always done so everywhere) ; 
 he moves in a vicious circle, like all his people. 
 
 The key to the problem lay in the adoption of the 
 principle of the natural inequality of men. The 
 great ought not to be subjected to the same laws as 
 the small; they must be given prvileges instead of 
 having such taken away from them — and that for 
 the good of all. We could share in the honor of 
 forming great men by standing up for them; we 
 prefer to form criminals by laying down everywhere 
 laws which these select natures must violate if they 
 wish to give the full measure of their superiority, 
 if they wish to remain the exceptional beings that 
 nature has made them. Our society is responsible 
 for the so-called crookedness of characters like 
 Rockefeller and Harriman, as it was responsible for 
 the cruelty toward the galley slave, Jean Valjean. 
 
SALVATION POSSIBLE, NOT PROBABLE 237 
 
 A certain young American economist (Ghent), 
 who is also a sociaHst, has opened his eyes, and 
 has reached the conclusion that democracy, in order 
 to escape its contradictions, must come to establish 
 something that he characterizes by a phrase which 
 is a definition of his theory, — benevolent feudalism. 
 Apart from the details of the concrete social organi- 
 zation which he proposes, the principle is eminently 
 just : to separate the classes, to permit the elite to 
 assert themselves, only insisting that they feel their 
 responsibilities ; to put in place of the purely author- 
 itative feudalism of the middle ages a more en- 
 lightened feudalism, more humanitarian ; to do this 
 is to recognize the rights of superiority and to make 
 the serfs themselves happier. But Ghent was not 
 listened to any more than was Mallock, author of 
 a work replete with sound and just ideas, Aristoc- 
 racy and Evolution. The people preferred democ- 
 racy, and were obliged to fall back on pragmatism. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IS WILLIAM JAMES A PRAGMATIST? 
 
 The coexistence in William James of pragmatic thought and pure 
 thought. Two reasons have finally made the balance in- 
 cHne to the side of pragmatism: i. social environment; 2. 
 academic environment. William James reacts against a 
 pseudo-pragmatism, opposing a higher pragmatism to a lower 
 pragmatism. The system of two truths. 
 
 This question may seem impertinent; yet it is not 
 irrelevant. 
 
 I have felt obliged to attack the ideas of a man 
 whom I deem to be one of the most awake thinkers 
 of our epoch; but in arguing against him as the 
 most brilliant representative of pragmatism, I have 
 more than once asked myself whether James really 
 belongs to that class of philosophers whose flag he 
 flies. Let me attempt to handle this little psycholog- 
 ical problem — necessarily involving some personal 
 remarks — without infringing the laws of good 
 breeding. 
 
 William James is the son of Henry James, who 
 attached himself first to the Presbyterian faith, and 
 afterwards, on becoming a Swedenborgian, wrote 
 Society the Redeemed Form of Man; he is the 
 author of this saying which contains virtually the 
 whole of pragmatism : " The true is worthy of rev- 
 
IS WILLIAM JAMES A PRAGMATIST? 239 
 
 erence only so far as it is in the service of the 
 good " (cited by Bargy : La religion dans la Societe 
 anx Etats-Unis, p. 146). 
 
 So we are to think of William James as reared in 
 a graciously austere and mildly mystical New Eng- 
 land atmosphere. But later, as a young man, he 
 took up the study of the exact sciences, — undoubt- 
 edly becoming much interested in them for he took 
 the degree of doctor of medicine; and later began 
 by teaching anatomy. But a conflict was not long 
 in breaking forth between his mystical tendencies 
 and his scientific tendencies. It is interesting to 
 note that a part of James's professional prepara- 
 tion was made in Geneva, where, while studying 
 anatomy, physiology, and geology, he lived in that 
 atmosphere of ingrained Protestantism which, with- 
 out being as sour as people sometimes please 
 themselves in thinking it to be, knows how to win 
 everybody over to moral, or pragmatic, preoccupa- 
 tions ; it is the same milieu out of which issued Jean 
 Jacques Rousseau. When he returned to America, 
 Professor James, as I have just said, taught the 
 natural sciences; then he instructed in psychology, 
 which brought him into close relations with philoso- 
 phy. After a term of years he published his great 
 work. The Principles of Psychology, which reveals, 
 side by side with a very sincere love of objective 
 science, deep-running moral and teleological predi- 
 lections. It is easy to see that Mr. James avoids 
 giving his judgment for a mechanical conception of 
 
240 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 life, though deep down this must be his idea. Maril- 
 lier, in the last of the studies he made of the work, 
 in the Revue Philosophiqiie (February, 1893), well 
 said : " The teleological character of the system is 
 at first very striking, and one must penetrate beyond 
 the literal sense of the phrases to perceive that very 
 frequently he means some kind of mechanical selec- 
 tion in nature rather than an intentional choice. 
 William James never flatly affirms that anywhere, 
 perhaps because he has not decided in favor of one of 
 the two conceptions but oscillates constantly between 
 them without distinctly acknowledging it " (p. 182). 
 
 Professor James could not remain always in this 
 equivocal position. The very loyalty and generosity 
 of his fine nature were opposed to it. In the essays 
 and volumes penned by him after the Psychology, 
 his teleological predilections kept augmenting up to 
 the time when he decided to make pragmatic ideas a 
 part of his intellectual capital. Two paramount in- 
 fluences seem to me to have been at work, apart from 
 what I might call personal predispositions. 
 
 First, the pragmatic atmosphere of America, 
 which I have talked about sufficiently in the preced- 
 ing pages to make it unnecessary for me to recur to 
 the subject here. Nobody can entirely free himself 
 from the influence of the environment in which he 
 lives, and William James is morally too human, and 
 intellectually too penetrating, not to comprehend the 
 worth of pragmatism in the life of a nation such as 
 the people of the United States form, and not to 
 
is WILLIAM JAMES A PRAGMATIST? 241 
 
 approve it and even endeavor to help to establish it 
 on a solid basis. (Let me observe, by the way, that 
 the brother of William, the novelist Henry James, 
 who has entirely given up living in America, has be- 
 come a pure intellectualist, and is even more such in 
 his latest novels than in his earliest. ) 
 
 But a second influence operated in an entirely dif- 
 ferent way. It is less apparent, but I believe it to be 
 a real one and very important : I mean a sort of 
 pseudo-philosophy, nay, even pseudo-pragmatism, 
 invading on this side and on that the domain of 
 thought, and against which James felt the necessity 
 of a reaction. Let me explain : In the natural sci- 
 ences America conducts researches as disinterested 
 and as objective as any country whatever ; and one 
 may indeed say that this is so as long as the relations 
 between science and practical life are quite loose. 
 But when these relations become closer it is different. 
 Two classes of investigators are then formed: 
 
 1. Those who take their stand resolutely upon 
 practical ground, without caring whether or not the 
 philosophical verities at the base of their practical 
 theories are valid from the point of view of pure 
 reason. These are the political economists. 
 
 2. Those who insist upon basing the social and 
 moral organization of life on philosophical prin- 
 ciples, and who therefore can never be confronted 
 with any philosophical theory without at once weigh- 
 ing its practical conclusions. 
 
 As respects the class of disinterested philosophers, 
 16 
 
242 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 it is extremely restricted in number, that is to say, 
 of those who, while they know very well that there 
 are relations between scientific or philosophic truths 
 and life, yet study the former without any preoccu- 
 pation as to their practical application, just as, for 
 instance, an astronomer might study the stars, or a 
 biologist the phenomena of physiological regenera- 
 tion, or a mathematician space of four dimensions. 
 In general, we may say that in the wake of the diffu- 
 sion of instruction in our modern democracies has 
 followed the further idea that all the instruction we 
 receive ought to serve as a practical guide in our 
 active life; the idea that philosophic speculations 
 and the higher mathematics, not to speak of Greek 
 and Latin and the humanities, shall help men to 
 better success in the conduct of life, — just as a 
 knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic pre- 
 pares an economic person not to be deceived by a 
 dishonest merchant. Now it is not only a mark of 
 superficiality to believe innocently in the possibility 
 of applying any and every scientific and philosophic 
 truth to life ; nay, it involves a positive danger. In 
 fact, it is fanaticism, with all its attendant evils, its 
 cruelties and its stupidities; for, precisely, fanati- 
 cism consists in blindly applying a principle without 
 considering the circumstances which either impose 
 restrictions upon it or render every application of 
 it mischievous. Science laid under contribution in 
 this way is a social plague. And this plague rages 
 fiercely in the country of William James. Let no 
 
IS WILLIAM JAMES A PRAGMATIST? 243 
 
 one object that I am contradicting myself because 
 I showed above that the people were pragmatic. I 
 simply note the fact that side by side with the 
 masses, and beneath a small and select class of true 
 scholars and scientists, there is a numerous class of 
 pseudo-savants, controlled by certain university 
 men, and especially composed of teachers. These 
 persons, at the time of the great scientific awakening 
 in the United States, some twenty years ago, in 
 order that they might take a hand in the sport, tem- 
 porarily abandoned their posts to go and drink of 
 the poisoned spring, setting their wits to w^ork to 
 apply, all athwart and counter, the new philosophic 
 and scientific ideas ; and, finding the masses still less 
 prepared than they to assimilate these ideas, they too 
 frequently succeeded, in their misguided enthusi- 
 asm, in putting preposterous principles into circula- 
 tion. For reasons easily comprehended, psychology 
 lent itself to this form of exploitation more than 
 any other science; and its speedy application to 
 ethics, and still more to pedagogy, produced ridicu- 
 lous results, sometimes positively disastrous in un- 
 skillful hands, even if it had only been, as President 
 Butler of Columbia University once very correctly 
 observed, the frittering away of the youthful days 
 of innumerable children, subjected in the name of 
 "science" (innocent victims of this fatal zeal) to 
 ever new methods of education. Nothing is better 
 adapted to prevent the germination of the seed sown 
 in the mind and to put the brains of young people 
 
244 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 into irremediable confusion; a single mediocre 
 method of instruction systematically carried out 
 would produce infinitely better fruit than a thou- 
 sand excellent methods (and how many of these 
 methods are excellent?) tried on, one after the other. 
 Through this disconcerting mingle-mangle of sci- 
 ence and practical predilections, education tinkerers 
 finally attained to inconceivable puerilities/ The 
 thing was carried to such a pitch that superb psy- 
 chological laboratories in which many believed they 
 saw the " open sesame " of the millenium have to- 
 day a reputation not always merited of charlatanry. 
 I remember hearing some years ago Professor 
 Miinsterberg, the director of the psychological labo- 
 ratory at Harvard, make a determined attack, in the 
 presence of an academic audience, upon experi- 
 mental psychology as it is popularly conceived. 
 
 Now William James, as the author of the com- 
 prehensive work which best sums up the aspirations 
 of our modern psychology, was better situated than 
 any one else to realize the shallowness of all these 
 crudities and puerilities, and he frequently made use 
 of pragmatism to protest against them. It may be 
 said that one of the objects of James was to offset 
 a narrow, low pragmatism by an intelligent, lofty 
 pragmatism. Of course (he would say to the 
 pseudo-philosophers) we must take cognizance of 
 the consequences of a theory in practical life; but 
 
 * In all this it will be easily understood why the author does not 
 wish to quote names. 
 
IS WILLIAM JAMES A PRAGMATIST? 245 
 
 still we must be quite sure that the speculative con- 
 clusions we may reach have enough importance in 
 themselves to be worth the trouble of making syste- 
 matic applications of them to the concrete life. 
 Moreover, you make observations for the most part 
 in some isolated department of thought, and then, 
 as if the salvation of the world depended on it, you 
 will overturn everything for the pleasure of making 
 use of your little truth. If you will take hold of 
 philosophy on its practical side, then applications 
 are more important than the principles or natural 
 laws you formulate; then, indeed, we must create 
 social principles, as political economists are already 
 seeking to propound them, and, as far as that is con- 
 cerned, the politicians, and even the priests. But 
 it is only your ignorance that makes you so bold as 
 to want to reach that goal by the road of philosophy ; 
 you will always be baffled by the reality. You set 
 up to be little Gods ; but in reality you are the very 
 counterpart of children who wrap a stick of wood 
 in a rag and believe they have made a baby, or you 
 are like little boys bestriding gravely their broom- 
 stick horse. You are pragmatic, but in an abom- 
 inable way ; you are going counter to the very end 
 you propose to yourself. An understanding great 
 and acute enough to follow up by conscientious 
 analysis, even to its minutest details, the formidable 
 mix of causes and effects in nature would be super- 
 human. Certain grand geniuses appear at irregular 
 intervals, — monsters of genius, in truth, — who are 
 
246 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 endowed with extraordinary powers of divination 
 that unconsciously guide them ; and even the great- 
 est have never accounted for more than the merest 
 fraction of the motives that impel them to act. Of 
 course, every sensation, every thought, every action, 
 is per se analyzable by psychology, but as a matter 
 of fact never will be analyzed by minds as limited as 
 ours, or analyzed in such a way that the analysis 
 shall be for us of a pragmatic value. Let us ponder 
 these words of Auguste Comte in the second lecture 
 of his Coiirs de philosophie positive: " It is evident 
 that, having conceived in a general way of the study 
 of nature as serving as a rational basis for action 
 upon nature, the human mind ought to go on in 
 theoretic researches, in doing away wholly with any 
 kind of practical consideration; for our means of 
 discovering truth are so imperfect that if we do not 
 concentrate them exclusively upon this object, and 
 if, in our search for the truth, we impose upon our- 
 selves the extraneous condition of finding in it an 
 immediate practical utility, it would be almost im- 
 possible for us to attain to it." ^ And vice versa, let 
 US' cease to burden with scientific, philosophical, or 
 psychological analyses the creative genius of the 
 artist, for example, or even in a more modest sphere, 
 the practical good sense which guides us in real life. 
 Philosophy frequently leads us astray because we 
 
 * Compare with this sentence in William James's recent Pluralistic 
 Universe: "Philosophy should seek this kind of living [intuitional] 
 understanding of the movement of reality, not follow science in vainly 
 patching together fragments of its dead results" (p. 264). 
 
IS WILLIAM JAMES A PRAGMATIST? 247 
 
 have at command only our own philosophy, which is 
 always limited. Now if we wish really to create 
 pragmatic philosophy, we must be more radical ; we 
 must be practical above all. — In such a way as this 
 William James has opposed to the bourgeois prag- 
 matism of the pygmy scientists around him a prag- 
 matism wiser and profounder, and one conscious of 
 its ignorance ; and I should like to draw a very clean 
 and sharp line of demarcation between it and the 
 pragmatism of his followers in philosophy, Messrs. 
 Schiller, for instance, or Papini. He is pragmatic 
 in the superior sense of the word, not in the sense 
 accepted by the majority, whether adherents or not 
 of pragmatism. It is to draw attention to this fun- 
 damental difference that I have entitled this chapter 
 "Is James a Pragmatist?" He radically sepa- 
 rates theory and practice. For instance, his attitude 
 toward occultism (*^ metapsychics " as Richet has 
 termed it) seems to me extremely correct.^ Even 
 should you prove to me a hundred times that a phe- 
 nomenon of hallucination or of telepathy is theoreti- 
 cally explicable by auto-suggestion or by some other 
 natural reason, you would still not have proved any- 
 thing, for you have not proved that your explana- 
 tion is the true one. " There is more in heaven and 
 earth, Horatio, than is dreamed of in your philoso- 
 phy." There are a thousand ways of theoretically 
 
 * Even though, as I have said, this attitude seems to me to have 
 been suggested to him by his desire to prove immortality and the reli- 
 gious doctrines which gravitate around it. 
 
248 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 accounting for any phenomenon. Even a phenome- 
 non as simple as the fall of a stone may have many 
 different causes. It way be detached from a cliff, 
 proceed from the explosion of a mine or a volcano, 
 or tumble from a roof; it may have been thrown 
 into the air by a child or what not ; it may even fall 
 from the sky. You may sometimes think you have 
 the true explanation, when really you only have one 
 of several possible explanations. Remember the 
 story of the negro Rahan and the apple in The 
 Arabian Nights; it is a veritable apologue. And 
 the more complex the phenomena become, the more 
 possible become the errors. Now science, after all, 
 hardly goes deeper than the possible explanation. 
 " Science," says James, in his Will to Believe, " has 
 organized her mental processes into a regular tech- 
 nique, her so-called method of verification; and she 
 has fallen so deeply in love with the method that one 
 may even say she has ceased to care for truth by 
 itself at all. It is only truth that is technically veri- 
 fi,ed that interests her. The truth of truths might 
 come in merely affirmative form, and she would de- 
 cline to touch it" (p. 21 ). Elsewhere William 
 James expresses his personal opinion in these words : 
 " The negative, the alogical, is never wholly ban- 
 ished. Something — call it fate, chance, freedom, 
 spontaneity, the devil, what you will — is still wrong 
 and other and outside and unincluded, from your 
 point of view, even though you be the greatest of 
 philosophers" (p. viii). 
 
IS WILLIAM JAMES A PRAGMATIST? 249 
 
 Let me cite also the last words of Varieties of 
 Religions Experience : 
 
 ** The total expression of human experience, as I 
 view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the nar- 
 row ' scientific ' bounds. Assuredly the real world is 
 of a different temperament, — more intricately built 
 than physical science allows. So my objective and my 
 subjective conscience both hold me to the over-belief 
 which I express. Who knows whether the faithfulness 
 of individuals here below to their own poor over-beliefs 
 may not actually help God in turn to be more effectively 
 faithful to his own greater tasks ? " 
 
 In the last phrase, as in all the theological opinions 
 of the book from which I have taken this citation, 
 Air. James has gone beyond his premises, and on that 
 ground he could no more succeed than those who 
 became pragmatists from mere pettiness of mind.^ 
 But the groundwork of his thought, the meaning — 
 conscious or unconscious — of his pragmatic writ- 
 ing, after all is said, is this : to ask for what I have 
 myself also called for, — the separation of science 
 or philosophy from life; the difference between us 
 being solely that, while he fears to see life absorbed 
 by philosophy, I fear, should he succeed, to see 
 philosophy absorbed by life. For, in order to attain 
 his ends, William James has yielded precisely to 
 
 ^ Marcel Hebert notes also in James as a pragmatist that trace 
 of faltering I had called attention to in his Psychology. "He (James), 
 after he has demolished everything, excels in reconstructing all by 
 unexpected over-beliefs.^* {Le Pra^matisme^ p. 97.) 
 
2SO ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 that temptation to confront the absorption of life 
 by philosophy with the absorption of philosophy by 
 life. 
 
 As to myself, I propose a compromise. My reason 
 cannot abdicate her throne, nor can I agree to give 
 up philosophy for the sake of life. Besides, since 
 it would be in the name of reason that I should con- 
 demn the value of reason, what would this condem- 
 nation be worth? We cannot get away from 
 our own shadow. On the other hand, since it is 
 dangerous to allow life to be absorbed by philoso- 
 phy, dangerous from the social point of view, I pro- 
 pose to adopt for practical reasons the systems of 
 two truths, — a philosophic truth, independent of 
 consequences, and a pragmatic truth, which shall be 
 our social philosophy of the people, for the benefit 
 of society. William James, in order not to break 
 completely with philosophy, and to preserve at one 
 and the same time certain incontestable scientific 
 data and pragmatism, has been forced to formulate 
 his philosophic creed as pluralism: I propose a 
 " dualism " for practical reasons. For there cannot 
 be contradiction in truth (as pluralism impliedly 
 admits), but nothing hinders us from acting as if 
 there were two truths. To frankly recognize that 
 humanity is right in basing its ethics on false prin- 
 ciples would only be base if we were responsible for 
 the fact that truth is mischievous and the lie advan- 
 tageous. What has always distinguished the true 
 philosopher is moderation, — which, however, must 
 not be confounded with cowardice. 
 
IS WILLIAM JAMES A PRAGMATIST? 251 
 
 But once more, pragmatism, as a philosophic 
 method and as a. philosophic system, only begins when 
 you cease to make a distinction between philosophy 
 and life (or, if you will, ethics), and it seems clear 
 to me that it is this distinction which is with Wil- 
 liam James the important thing. I am certain that 
 he would defend this portion of his doctrines to the 
 last ditch; I am not so certain that he would very 
 vigorously insist on defending this quite different 
 idea, that pragmatism is philosophic truth. In the 
 chapter he has devoted to the definition of truth, 
 the phrase " absolute truth " occurs several times. 
 It does not much matter just what he means by this ; 
 but it must be something else than pragmatic truth. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 In order that his readers may more easily grasp the 
 real meaning of his work, an author sometimes feels 
 the need of summing up its central idea in a preface. 
 It has been done here. I therefore esteem it to be 
 superfluous to add a special conclusion; but I shall 
 take the liberty of begging the conscientious reader 
 to re-read the few pages at the beginning of this 
 volume, and of which he will now be better able to 
 grasp the whole meaning. 
 
 Yet if I were asked to sum up in a sentence the 
 thesis I have tried to defend it would be this : 
 
 I am in perfect sympathy with the social work 
 which pragmatism proposes to itself, which is, in 
 short, to render humanity as happy as possible. 
 But I do not believe that the means adopted — the 
 bending of philosophy to its needs and developing 
 the spirit of democracy as it is conceived to-day — 
 are the only possible ones, or even the best. Above 
 all, I do not believe they are the most worthy means, 
 for they rest on a double philosophic error, — the 
 agreement of scientific truth with human aspirations, 
 and the intellectual and social equality of individuals. 
 
APPENDIX A 
 ANSWERS TO SOME CRITICISMS 
 
 "Owe must play the game of philosophy with the 
 cards all on the tabled — J. E. Creighton. 
 
 The Argument of Silence. Mr. Schiller's Criticism. Pragmatic 
 Method and Pragmatic Theories. Intellectual Aristocracy 
 and the Masses. Science and Morality. Anti -Pragmatism 
 and Hyper-Pragmatism. 
 
 The Argument of Silence. — Although the least 
 convincing, it is much in favor among pragmatists; 
 and this is why I feel called to discuss it here before 
 any other. Pragmatists will acknowledge receipt of 
 criticisms, but they usually make one of the three fol- 
 lowing answers, or all three together: I. You fail en- 
 tirely to understand us, or II. Your argument shows 
 that you fail to appreciate the real issue, or III. You 
 ascribe to us theories which we never expressed, nor 
 cared to express. This seems to settle the case for 
 them ; ^ it does not for others. 
 
 ^ Under the title Discussion, Professor Moore writes an article on 
 Anti-Pragmatism which contains these words: "Into the issue itself 
 we cannot go; " and Professor Dewey, who thinks nothing good what- 
 soever of the volume under discussion, is careful in his account of it 
 not to seize the occasion to explain in what he was so thoroughly mis- 
 understood; for, when he comes to speak of the chapter concerning 
 him especially, he remarks: "A becoming modesty forbids my deal- 
 ing with it." This we may take as profound irony . . . but then it 
 may be asked why Professor Dewey took the trouble of writing an 
 
254 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 I. Suppose for one moment that their claim be true 
 and that really nobody understands pragmatism: — 
 then, whose fault is it? It seems to me that so far 
 philosophers have succeeded in making themselves 
 understood by their fellow students; else they did 
 their opponents the honor of telling where the mis- 
 understanding was. 
 
 Or is pragmatism so terribly deep that only the few 
 elect can live up to it ? — Why then take the trouble 
 of spreading it abroad, writing books, giving popular 
 lectures about it? If it is not so extremely profound, 
 and pragmatists will agree that others might penetrate 
 the arcana of the new philosophy, then I can see only 
 one reason for not opposing arguments to objections, 
 namely, the difficulty in offering any. 
 
 II. With regard to the second claim that opponents 
 of pragmatists do not appreciate the point at issue, the 
 following remarks will not be out of place : 
 
 I. Besides minor objections, there is one that was 
 made to pragmatists over and over again, in all sorts 
 of forms, namely, that they substitute for the one great 
 philosophical problem of organic, logical, continuous 
 truth, a quantity of unconnected problems ; or that 
 they substitute for the epistemological problem of truth 
 a moral, if not utilitarianist, conception of truth ; or 
 again that they replace objective truth by subjective 
 truth ; — they are all one and the same accusation — 
 why not use William James's frank expression, and 
 say, with him, that pragmatists are trying to substitute 
 
 account of the wretched book unless it be that he was afraid lest others 
 should think differently in reading it. Personally, I much prefer the 
 attitude of Professor James who declined to discuss publicly Anti- 
 Pragmatism. 
 
ANSWERS TO SOME CRITICISMS 255 
 
 a midtiverse for a imiverse? I have added to the text 
 of this edition a long note to the central passage of my 
 own criticism (where I point out the confusion between 
 what I called the *' scientific pragmatism '' and the 
 " moral pragmatism "), quoting from two of the fore- 
 most critics of pragmatism in America : Messrs. Hibben 
 and Creighton. Professor Creighton adds to the pas- 
 sage reproduced a few lines (which I like to reproduce 
 now) to the effect that '' it is somewhat remark- 
 able that those who uphold the teleological or instru- 
 mental view of knowledge have as yet devoted almost 
 no attention to answering the serious and legitimate 
 objections that have been strongly urged against their 
 position from many sides " {Philosophical Review, Vol. 
 XIII, pp. 294, 295) ; and several names are given, 
 among them Professor Seth's (who, by the way, has 
 renewed the charges in a review of William James's 
 Pluralistic Universe {Philosophical Review, Septem- 
 ber, 1909). This was in 1904, and in January, 1909, 
 Dr. Cams could still write in Monist, " It is strange 
 that all his critics agree in misunderstanding Professor 
 James's conception of truth" (pp. 85, 86). 
 
 2. In discussing Anti-Pragmatism all the reviewers 
 that offered more than a few lines' account have very 
 well agreed on this central passage (distinction between 
 " scientific " pragmatism and *' moral " pragmatism) ; 
 even those who would strongly differ from the author's 
 personal ideas would still admit that the case there was 
 good (e. g., A. Naviller, in Semaine Litteraire, fimile 
 Faguet, in Idees Modernes, the anonymous reviewer in 
 Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale).^ 
 
 ^ As we go to press, the article of M. G. Compayrd, ex- rector of the 
 University of Lyon and professor of philosophy, comes in; referring 
 
256 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 3. We were three in France who wrote up pragmat- 
 ism at the same time, and not knowing anything of 
 each other, we all three pointed out the necessity for 
 this distinction sometimes in remarkably similar terms ; 
 see Anti-Pragmatism, pp. 26-37; Chantecor, L'Annee 
 psychologique, 1908, Le Pragmatisme, pp. 377, 378, 
 especially; and A. Rey, La philosophie moderne 
 (Flammarion, 1908), pp. 70, 71, 75-79, 137, 138, 330, 
 
 331.' 
 
 Thus, as the same objection is brought against prag- 
 matists from all quarters, may it not pertinently be 
 asked whether they are not perhaps the ones who fail 
 or refuse to appreciate the point at issue? 
 
 III. Not much need be said regarding the third jus- 
 tification offered by pragmatists who use the argument 
 of silence, namely, that ideas are asc»-ibed to them, 
 the paternity of which they refuse to endorse. Their 
 attitude here is almost naive in thus quietly refusing to 
 consider disturbing consequences implied in their 
 premises and denying us the right to answer : " No, 
 you did not say so explicitly, of course; but you can- 
 not not say it if you say such other thing." 
 
 While I was correcting the proofs of this chapter, I 
 received the new book by Professor James, The Mean- 
 ing of Truth. I am sorry to find that he cultivates 
 
 to the claim of Poincare by the pragmatists: **M. Schinz en d^montre 
 avec force la faussete" {La Revue, Sept. 15, 1909). 
 
 * Rey shows, on pp. 75-79 among others, the important distinc- 
 tion that exists between Poincar6's theories and those of pragmatism; 
 and this suggests an interesting remark, namely, that William James 
 seems to have by himself given up his claims on Poincare and re- 
 placed him almost entirely by Bergson in Pluralistic Universe. This 
 is much better. Indeed, the clever and delusive books of Bergson re- 
 mind one very much of James's way of apprehending problems. 
 
ANSWERS TO SOME CRITICISMS 257 
 
 there the argument of silence on a great scale. Among 
 the critics he does not " pretend to consider " even 
 the names of such men " as Messrs. Taylor, Lovejoy, 
 Gardiner, Bakewell, Creighton, Hibben, Parodi, Salter, 
 Carus, Lalande, Mentre, McTaggart, G. E. Moore and 
 others, especially not Professor Schinz, who has pub- 
 lished under the title Anti-Pragmatisjne an amusing 
 sociological romance." (I am glad to have contrib- 
 uted to Professor James's merriment, and I am sure, 
 of course, that a colleague — whose name was just 
 barely mentioned in the above list, and who is evidently 
 jealous of the large space allotted to me — was wrong 
 when he commented on my " special " mention : " You 
 must have hit him.") The opponents after Professor 
 James's heart are men like Mr. J. B. Pratt, " for . . . 
 [Mr. Pratt] . . . admits all my essential contentions" 
 (p. 169). 
 
 Why does Professor James not consider the criticism 
 of men, among whom appear almost all the leading 
 philosophers of America ? Two reasons are given : ( i ) 
 " These critics seem to labor under an inability almost 
 pathetic to understand the thesis which they seek to 
 refute." Their case may be " pathetic " ; but at the 
 same time it is strange that, with the mastery of Eng- 
 lish style possessed by Professor James, he should not 
 be able to formulate pragmatism so that other intellects 
 can understand it and accept it. May it not be, after 
 all, that something is wrong with pragmatism? 
 
 (2) The other reason is that Professor James does 
 not wish to add '' more repetition to the fearful amount 
 that is already there." — Well, yes! that is just the 
 trouble, " the fearful amount of repetition." When 
 
 17 
 
258 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 pragmatists repeat the same things all the time, how can 
 they expect that a simple change in the way of dress- 
 ing their ideas will make any impression upon serious 
 critics? Would it not be better to meet the criticism 
 addressed to them from all quarters, which is summar- 
 ized in these words: Pragmatism is Subjectivism? 
 
 In short, the argument of silence will not do — no 
 more than that of irony, by the way. Pragmatists can 
 surely not complain that philosophers have not endeav- 
 ored conscientiously to understand them. We may 
 have all failed, but then, if pragmatists insist upon not 
 telling us at last what pragmatism is, of course we will 
 never know ; — if they will not tell, who will ? 
 
 Mr. Schiller's Criticism. — The above remarks 
 do not apply to Mr. Schiller, who, on the contrary, has 
 proved, as far as the author is concerned, a loyal oppo- 
 nent in spite of his amusing bluntness. He has taken 
 up the discussion and frankly met our criticisms. He 
 deserves credit for it not only because his attitude is 
 more normal, but also because he so fearlessly commits 
 pragmatism to irrationalism, and thus renders things 
 much easier. I quoted his sentence : " If one had to 
 choose between Irrationalism and Intellectualism, 
 there would be no doubt that the former would have to 
 be preferred." {Humanism, p. 6.) He tries to get 
 out of the difficulty now by saying that the sentence 
 was meant as a " sarcasm." {Mind, July, 1909, 
 p. 420. ) Very well ; but then the case appears to me 
 thus : Either Mr. Schiller maintains his statement seri- 
 ously, or he does not. If he does, then he condemns 
 the logical character of pragmatism — that is what 
 I accuse him of. If he does not maintain it, then once 
 
ANSWERS TO SOME CRITICISMS 259 
 
 more I ask : In what does pragmatism differ from any 
 other philosophy which conforms to the rules of logic?* 
 
 Here are the words by which Mr. Schiller defends 
 himself : " Surely prudence as well as candor should 
 have urged Mr. Schinz to read a few lines further. 
 I own that Pragmatism vindicates the rationality of 
 Irrationalism, without becoming itself irrational; it 
 restrains the extravagance of Intellectualism, without 
 losing faith in the intellect^' Will the reader kindly 
 weigh these words : " Pragmatism vindicates the ra- 
 tionality of Irrationalism without becoming itself irra- 
 tional " ; let us be " candid " about it ; can they mean 
 anything else but : " the rationality of being irrational, 
 without being irrational " ? I do not see it ; words 
 have a meaning, I suppose. But is not this taxing our 
 " candor " rather high ! ^ 
 
 As to the second part of the phrase, it adds nothing 
 to the point in question : " Pragmatism restrains the 
 extravagance of Intellectualism without losing faith in 
 the intellect." Did ever an intellectualist make it a 
 point to advocate extravagances of the intellect ? I am 
 not aware of it; and even if some did, intellectualism 
 
 ^ Let me take this opportunity to point out the vagueness of Mr. 
 Schiller's method. Here is another case parallel to the one just 
 quoted: In Stiidies in Humanism, p. 360, "What right have we to 
 assume that even 'ultimate' truth must be one and the same for all? 
 The assumption is no doubt convenient, and in a rough and ready 
 way it works. . . ." Is that meant as "sarcasm" also? At any rate, 
 we should like to know, does it or does it not work? 
 
 ^ Mr. Schiller's words are echoed by William James, who in Plur- 
 alistic Universe asks us to "think in non-conceptualized terms" (!) 
 (p. 290). And even by Professor Dewey who, in his criticism of 
 Anti-Pragmatisme suggests that there might be "a pragmatic inter- 
 pretation of the principle of contradiction." {Philosophical RevieWf 
 July, 1909, p. 447.) Indeed, that would be interesting! 
 
26o ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 ought not to be condemned for that man's extrava- 
 gance. Without losing faith in the intellect — why, 
 then, if one adopts the requirements of the intellect, 
 part company with intellectualism ? Always and ever 
 we are brought back to the dilemma on which rests 
 my whole criticism : Pragmatism can be different from 
 philosophy as understood up to this day, i. e., rational 
 or intellectual philosophy, only by being irrational; 
 Pragmatism has to be irrational or not be at all. 
 This is positively implied in the premises of their 
 affirmations. Mr. Schiller wants to " reform logic " 
 (loc. cit. p. 426) ; but nobody can " reform " logic; we 
 find logic in us, we do not make it. Aristotle himself 
 would never claim that he invented logic. ... I am 
 sure I run very little risk in predicting that Mr. 
 Schiller in his future book may possibly violate logic, 
 but he surely can never " reform " it. The " psycho- 
 logical pragmatism " he refers to in his criticism, and 
 which would serve as a link between what I called " sci- 
 entific " and '' moral " pragmatism, will be of no avail ; 
 it can simply juxtapose both; it can ignore their in- 
 compatibility, but it will never do away with it. 
 
 By the way, regarding this question of the irration- 
 alism of pragmatism. Prof. Wm. James is as outspoken 
 in his last volume as we may desire : " For my own 
 part I have finally found myself compelled to give up 
 logic fairly, equally, and irrevocably . . ." or again, 
 " So, I prefer bluntly to call it, if not irrational, then at 
 least non-rational in its constitution." (Pluralistic 
 Universe, pp. 212, 213.) I isolate, of course, those pas- 
 sages from all sorts of reservations made with a view 
 to make us swallow the real pragmatic pills; a good 
 deal would be gained, for instance, if pragmatists 
 
ANSWERS TO SOME CRITICISMS 261 
 
 would tell us once what difference they make between 
 irrational and non-rational ; because " candid " people 
 do not see any, at least when the words are used in such 
 a context.^ See now how less openly M. Schiller says 
 the same thing : " Reason may of course enter into the 
 rational act [the may is pretty!], but it is by no means 
 indispensable [ ! ! !], and even when it does occur [are 
 we not glad to hear that it occasionally does occur that 
 " reason enters into the rational act " ?] it only forms 
 a small part of the total process." ^ {Studies in Hu- 
 manism, p. 355.) Between the two ways, the " direct " 
 way of William James is still preferable. 
 
 Another criticism of Mr. Schiller is to the effect that 
 there are pragmatic writings which I do not quote and 
 which undoubtedly I have not read. I plead guilty; 
 there are many pragmatic writings which I did not 
 take the trouble of looking up. But I maintain that it 
 was not necessary. When one has found pragmatists 
 using ten, fifteen, twenty times the same deceiving 
 argument in trying to throw logic, what is the use of 
 keeping up reading? There comes a time when an 
 investigator can feel satisfied that no new argument 
 can possibly be offered. This I felt decidedly before 
 sitting down and writing Anti-Pragmatism — and I 
 have seen no new argument coming up in the discus- 
 sion of the book either ; not even in Mr. Schiller's crit- 
 icism in Mind. 
 
 ^ Here again I have an opportunity to refer to the authority of 
 Professor Seth. See the latter's criticism of a passage of William 
 James's Pluralistic Universe, similar to those of Schiller discussed 
 here in Philosophical Review^ September, 1909, the last page. 
 
 ' Italics are mine. 
 
262 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 Finally, my contention that there is a connection 
 which was well worth indicating between pragmatism 
 and modern conditions of social life (not especially the 
 American national character) is not accepted by Mr. 
 Schiller. But he bases his objection on the fact that 
 philosophers are opposed to pragmatism as a rule; 
 now, I say that pragmatism would be a philosophy well 
 adapted for the people of our generation. Thinkers 
 will some day realize that a philosophy may be excel- 
 lent socially, although not true in itself. I distinguish 
 very sharply — altogether too sharply in the eyes of 
 most of my critics — between pragmatism and prag- 
 matic philosophy ; Mr. Schiller does not give me credit 
 for it. 
 
 Pragmatic Method and Pragmatic Theories. — 
 There is something so disconcerting in the claims of 
 pragmatism that probably many may still feel like Mr. 
 Bertaud, who says in the International Journal of 
 Efthics, in his criticism of Anti-Pragmatisme (April, 
 1909, p. 396) : " One point remains obscure, however, 
 in all that: the relation of the pragmatic method to 
 the pragmatic theories obtained by the method. Schinz 
 seems to consider them inseparable. James has ob- 
 jected to it. And, in fact, we can conceive very well 
 of a man using the pragmatic method and being an 
 atheist ; if in his eyes society might be better organized 
 on atheistic than on religious principles, he could hold 
 this view and still be a pragmatist." 
 
 The answer to the query is made by Mr. Bertaud 
 himself; in the last words of the above lines he em- 
 phasizes my very criticism and that of most opponents 
 of pragmatism, namely, that the new " method " by 
 itself leads nowhere (or everywhere — the result is 
 
ANSWERS TO SOME CRITICISMS 263 
 
 the same) ; and this is the very reason why pragma- 
 tism is of no avail: it leads the one to theism, the 
 other to atheism, and in both cases the decision is 
 true to the pragmatic criterion of usefulness. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the answer does not depend on 
 the pragmatic method at all, but rather on the solution 
 of another preliminary question, in this case : " Which 
 society is preferable, the theistic one or the atheistic 
 one ? " According to what you think about it person- 
 ally you then choose the one or the other reply; but 
 the pragmatic element comes in too late to offer the 
 determining factor in the decision and to be of avail.^ 
 
 But, on the other hand, it so happens by a mere 
 accident that WiUiam James and his followers are 
 religiously inclined; and therefore as they have de- 
 cided for themselves that theism was better for man 
 than atheism, they were bound, in applying the prag- 
 matic method, to decide that theism was true; there 
 was a necessary relation between the method and the 
 theory. 
 
 One might express this very well by a short for- 
 mula: pragmatic philosophy distinguishes itself from 
 intellectualistic philosophy by substituting personal 
 rationalism for impersonal rationalism. 
 
 To sum up : there is not in itself any organic connec- 
 tion between pragmatism and rehgion ; William James 
 has a right to claim that. But, the opinions of a man 
 being such or such, a specific connection becomes im- 
 perative. Now, as one of the chief purposes of Aftti- 
 Pragmatism was to show that the pragmatic method 
 was the (conscious or unconscious) result, on the part 
 
 ' This was shown very well by Professor Pratt, What is Pragma- 
 tism, Lecture V. 
 
264 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 of the representatives of pragmatism, of a desire to 
 uphold certain ethical and religious views desirable for 
 society, I had a right to, and I did, emphasize this 
 connection between pragmatism and theism. 
 
 Intellectual Aristocracy and the Masses. — 
 I come now to the discussion of criticism, directed 
 against my own ideas. 
 
 In reading of the distinction I have established be- 
 tween the pragmatic problem (a social problem) and a 
 pragmatic philosophy, several no doubt have been in- 
 clined to interpret my theories as does Professor Moore 
 in the Journal of Philosophy (May 2y, 1909, p. 291). 
 " The thinking class as such is a law unto itself. It 
 needs render no account to the others (the masses). 
 But the others must render an account to the thinkers. 
 For the thinker finds it no less difficult to live by 
 thought alone than by bread alone. . . ." Professor 
 Moore does not quote my words, but evidently that is, 
 according to him, the way I ought to think with my 
 theories. I am not afraid to accept the consequences 
 implied in my premises ; still one may question here 
 whether really such things are implied. I say no. 
 Certainly it is my opinion that the aristocracy of the 
 intellect (which does not necessarily imply all philoso- 
 phers) ought to lead; and, furthermore, I do believe 
 that this aristocracy " need render no account to the 
 people " ; for, when one consents to render account 
 to some one, this implies a belief in the superiority of 
 the judger; now, for the aristocracy of the mind to 
 take the masses as judges would be both foolish and 
 unwise. But this does not mean that aristocracy ought 
 not to take the masses into account; on the contrary, 
 
ANSWERS TO SOME CRITICISMS 265 
 
 noblesse oblige. I maintain, for instance, that parents 
 " need not render account " to their children, but I do 
 not mean to say that parents need not act in taking 
 their children into consideration, — and not on account 
 of fear but possibly on account of love. Concerning 
 the social problem before us, my point of view is just 
 opposed to that ascribed to me by Professor Moore, 
 not a little loftier than he probably expects, and at the 
 same time in perfect logical agreement with all my 
 other ideas. In two words it is this : Masses have 
 rights and no duties, aristocracy has duties besides 
 rights. — I use the word " duties " for lack of a 
 better; it would lead me too far to go into more de- 
 tailed explanation here. 
 
 One of my critics has understood that part of Anti- 
 Pragmatism very well; it may not be out of place to 
 oppose his interpretation of my ideas to those of Pro- 
 fessor Moore : " Science rests entirely on the idea of 
 determinism of phenomena, which of course is bound 
 to kill energy and all sense of responsibility in the 
 people. Now society is, after all, more important than 
 scientific truth. Therefore, let us choose society with 
 untruth rather than truth with anarchy. The reason 
 why Schinz calls his book Anti-Pragmatisme is there- 
 fore not because he objects to a pragmatic philosophy; 
 the masses need it on the contrary. He only objects 
 to having this philosophy called true philosophy. He 
 deplores that we should be forced to keep truth from 
 the people, but sees in it a necessary result of modern 
 conditions or more plainly of democracy. . . . There 
 is, he says, an automatic law to the effect that the more 
 democratic we become, the more it will be necessary 
 
266 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 to conceal truth from the people; the freer people be- 
 come, the less free philosophy will be." (Bertaud, in 
 Intern. Journal of Ethics, April, 1909, pp. 395, 396.^) 
 
 Science and Morality. — One of my critics. Pro- 
 fessor A. Naville, of Geneva (Switzerland), has raised 
 a very interesting problem (Semaine Litter aire, March 
 6, 1909), namely: If the vulgarization of science, with 
 its basis of determinism, is harmful to the morality of 
 the masses, killing energy and resistance to lower in- 
 stincts, this same argument ought to hold also for the 
 representatives of intellectual aristocracy; because, 
 after all, no matter how intelligent or well educated 
 a man may be, he remains human. 
 
 I was well aware of the question in writing, but I 
 had several reasons for not going into a discussion; 
 chiefly this one: The fact that the objection could be 
 raised on moral grounds, and that, naturally, educated 
 or able people would not escape the consequences if 
 they became conscious of the determinism of phe- 
 nomena, will not render determinism less true. 
 
 In as far, however, as the question is raised, I will 
 say a word regarding it. The suggestion of Professor 
 Naville is: Ought we not, accepting Mr. Schinz's 
 theories, to stop science altogether, if, anyway, studying 
 would be, to say the least, of no good consequences? 
 
 To give an answer, one ought first to solve this other 
 question : Is morality an end by itself in life, or is it 
 only a means to reach some other goal? If it is an 
 end by itself, then of course science would better be 
 left alone. But if morality is only a means to render 
 
 * I have answered Professor Moore's article more fully in Journal 
 of Philosophy, August 5, 1909. 
 
ANSWERS TO SOME CRITICISMS 267 
 
 possible social life, and social life itself has an end, e. g., 
 we will say, human happiness, then the only way to 
 reach a solution would be to weigh the advantages and 
 disadvantages of science regarding human happiness. 
 My opinion in this case, briefly expressed, would be 
 that science or knowledge (kept, of course, from the 
 masses) can give us more happiness (in the form of 
 physical comfort, or artistic and scientific enjoyment 
 of all kinds) with the moral disadvantages connected 
 with it, than ignorance would give us with a higher 
 moral standard. 
 
 This is as much as I care, for the present, to discuss 
 this important topic. 
 
 Anti-pragmatism and Hyper-pragmatism. — 
 M. Fred. Paulhan, in a long discussion of the social 
 ideas explained in this volume, suggests in the Revue 
 Philosophique of June, 1909, that I am rather hyper- 
 pragmatist than anti-pragmatist. M. Faguet, in I dees 
 Modernes of March, 1909, writes : " And I wish to 
 call attention to the fact that his conclusions are not 
 anti-pragmatic, but, on the contrary, ultra-pragmatic " ; 
 Professor Moore in his turn {Journal of Philosophy, 
 May 2y, 1909) points out that " Professor Schinz's 
 defense of intellectualism is openly (what the pragma- 
 tist would insist it must implicitly be) pragmatic in 
 its method," while Professor Dewey {Philosophical 
 Review, July, 1909) speaks of the author's " prag- 
 matic suggestion to anti-pragmatists." ^ 
 
 Those statements are not altogether incorrect. I 
 am certainly more pragmatic than pragmatists when 
 I carry the " expediency " argument so far as to admit 
 
 * See also M. G. Compayre in his article in La Revue (ancienne 
 Revue des Revues)^ Sept. 15, 1909. 
 
268 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 that we ought to preach untruth, if untruth is morally 
 useful while truth would be sad and the acquaintance 
 with the latter might discourage or kill resistance 
 to low passions. Yes, this is Hyper-pragmatism. 
 Yet the book means Anti-pragmatism, too, for the 
 author considers pragmatic theories as merely socially 
 advisable; he never claims that they are true. The 
 purpose of the first part of the volume is precisely to 
 expose various attempts to persuade us that because 
 some idea is morally useful, it is for this reason true. 
 Philosophers ought not to indulge in the logic of ro- 
 mantic poets, who, finding that life would be too hor- 
 rible if there was no immortality, infer that therefore 
 immortality must be true. Immortality may be true, 
 but the argument of pragmatists and poets has no 
 philosophic value. 
 
APPENDIX B 
 LITERATURE AND THE MORAL CODE.^ 
 
 " Verite en dec a des Pyrenees, erreur au dela.*' 
 
 Pascal. 
 
 Two conceptions possible as to the relations of art and morals, 
 the one aesthetic (art for art's sake), the other didactic (art 
 as a means of promoting a social ideal). The former pre- 
 vails among Latin nations, the latter among Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 The didactic point of view implies : i. that art must adapt itself 
 to the intellectual level of the masses; 2. that our present 
 moral code is final. The first theory is disastrous for art, 
 the second is scarcely maintainable. The Anglo-Saxon 
 point of view is legitimate in that it takes into account the 
 well-being of society, but false in that it ignores the rights 
 of art ; while the Latin point of view safeguards freedom of 
 thought at the expense of public morality. 
 
 It is useless to try to reconcile these two conceptions ; they cannot 
 be reduced to the same terms. But why these difi"erences of 
 conception? Because the circumstances are different. The 
 Anglo-Saxon have only one public, the great public, the 
 popular public, to take into account; the French have two 
 of them, — the popular public and the intellectual public. 
 (Before the Revolution there was only one in France also, 
 the public of the higher class, the "^lite. ") This difference 
 of publics explains in great part the superiority of the Latin 
 literary class (artists), more favored because freer. 
 
 * These pages, which discuss a very concrete aspect of the moral 
 and social problems started by the general subject of pragmatism, 
 were first published in the International Journal of Ethics, July, 1906, 
 under circumstances indicated in the first paragraph. 
 
270 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 Will they always have this advantage ? It is doubtful ; the flood 
 of democracy sweeps all before it ; the Latin peoples will be 
 to-morrow where the Anglo-Saxons are to-day. 
 
 It is now some years ago that one or two English 
 authors (allusion is especially made to Pinero and 
 Shaw) put on the stage plays which were strongly 
 censured by the critics of England and America for 
 the freedom which they allowed themselves in discuss- 
 ing moral problems. This is unusual, for it is gener- 
 ally French writers who arouse criticism on that score. 
 The stir created by these plays in Anglo-Saxon coun- 
 tries makes it appear timely to discuss the respective 
 attitudes of Anglo-Saxon and of Latin races in such 
 matters.^ 
 
 No attempt will be made in the present paper to 
 show that one side is right and the other wrong; nor 
 is it intended to offer a compromise. On the contrary, 
 the purpose of this appendix is to show that the two 
 standpoints are not reducible to the same terms, to 
 show why they are bound to clash and why there can 
 be no reconciliation. An attempt will be made to make 
 the problem thus presented better understood. 
 
 First of all we must make a clear distinction between 
 the two attitudes — the attitude of literature toward 
 morality, and another which can by no means be iden- 
 tified with it, although one must admit that there is 
 some connection between the two. Some writers main- 
 tain that art has its aim in itself; it is the theory of 
 
 * I use these terms "Latin" and "Anglo-Saxon"; but to whoever 
 has read attentively certain passages in the body of this book, it will 
 be clear that I attach to the words only a geographical meaning 
 without implying by that any belief on my part in a profound influ- 
 ence of races. 
 
LITERATURE AND MORAL CODE 271 
 
 art for the sake of art, which is a distinctly Latin ideal. 
 Others, the great majority of Anglo-Saxon writers, 
 maintain that art must be only a means to an end. One 
 ideal is purely aesthetic, the other purely didactic. 
 
 But it would be a mistake to infer that Latin writers 
 ignore moral problems, and that art for the sake of 
 art is their only ideal. It would be decidedly erroneous 
 to believe that this is the most common attitude among 
 French artists. All sorts of practical problems are 
 treated as they are in Anglo-Saxon countries, but the 
 difference lies in the way they are approached. The 
 respective positions can be described about as follows : 
 The Anglo-Saxons say that literature must be kept 
 within the limits of the ethical laws that govern us, 
 must insist upon the beauty of those laws, and encour- 
 age their observance by the public. The Latins say 
 that literature has no such obligation in treating moral 
 problems. 
 
 Let us first examine the Anglo-Saxon standpoint. 
 Eliminating all rhetoric from the discussion, the argu- 
 ment may be summed up as follows : Society rests 
 upon certain moral and social principles which assure 
 order ; to suggest doubts as to the excellence of those 
 principles means to shake society to its foundations, 
 to breed disorder and anarchy. The very fact that 
 some persons, thanks to special gifts of nature, hold 
 a position of leadership places upon them increased 
 responsibilities. Authors, therefore, ought not to dis- 
 cuss problems of ethics in such a fashion as to mislead 
 the public. This attitude is perfectly reasonable, but 
 at the same time there are some consequences which 
 must be recognized. 
 
 It implies, first, that no art must be cultivated except 
 
272 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 that which is accessible to the masses and suited to 
 their inteUigence. It should be remembered that the 
 problem of freedom of thought in the treatment of 
 moral questions is a comparatively modern one in art 
 and literature. There was a time when books were not 
 accessible to all as they are to-day. Instruction was 
 the privilege of a few and literature was confined to 
 the educated classes. From the present moral point of 
 view, the literatures of past centuries were much freer 
 than ours. Of course no one in our day would be 
 likely to suffer imprisonment or torture or death for 
 expressing ideas disapproved by political or ecclesi- 
 astical authorities ; but the restriction now imposed by 
 moral obligations, by what is called " public opinion," 
 is in fact even greater than the physical coercion of 
 past centuries. We are not concerned here with the 
 question whether the present standpoint is better or 
 worse than the old. But that democracy is responsible 
 for the limitation of freedom of speech and thought 
 that hampers modern authors is certain. This is rec- 
 ognized by some of those who have come forward 
 lately protesting against liberty in literature. The 
 writer recently attended a large meeting of one of the 
 important literary clubs in this country, where the 
 chief speaker, a well-known professor of ethics, said 
 that if no protest is made against the too free treat- 
 ment of certain questions in novels or on the stage, 
 our democracy will be seriously threatened. 
 
 The attempt to restrict moral discussion has another 
 consequence. It is an assumption that our present 
 moral code is final. Now, in the progress of centuries, 
 as every one knows, ethical standards have changed. 
 Our modern conception of marriage, our duties toward 
 
LITERATURE AND MORAL CODE 273 
 
 children, our moral attitude toward inferior races, and 
 so forth, have undergone complete transformation. 
 On what ground, then, can we claim to have reached 
 the definitive truth in those matters? Certainly not on 
 the ground that the practical results are ideal. Let us 
 take the country where modern principles have been 
 allowed most freedom to develop unhampered by tra- 
 ditions — America. As the outgrowth of our concep- 
 tion of marriage we have the fact that the world over 
 America is called the *' land of divorce " ; as the out- 
 growth of our conception of civil freedom we have 
 *' bossism." To accept as permanent a social system 
 which yields such results would not be encouraging.^ 
 
 We allow liberty of thought in philosophical, in 
 economic, and in scientific problems, to a certain ex- 
 tent in religious problems, — why this exception in the 
 case of moral problems? What if the idea of the 
 sacredness of the moral code then in existence had been 
 successfully enforced in the time of Socrates, Buddha, 
 Christ, Luther, W^esley, even of Emerson ? The moral- 
 ists who would forbid a perfectly free discussion of 
 such topics as Mr. Bernard Shaw's plays deal with 
 are concerned first of all with the welfare of modern 
 democracy. They do not discuss literary art ; they 
 merely aim to defend democracy against a too free art. 
 
 Our conclusion is this : The Anglo-Saxon point of 
 view is right in that it takes into consideration our 
 
 ^ One might answer that these are not necessary results of modern 
 conceptions. This is perhaps true ; but then, let other social systems 
 have the benefit of this argument. The cruelty of masters, for instance, 
 is not a necessary result of slavery; in fact everybody agrees that 
 many slave owners were excellent masters. Yet even though they 
 were all good masters, no one would be in favor of slavery again. The 
 same holds good in other cases. 
 
 18 
 
274 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 modern social ideals, and wrong in that it does not 
 take art into consideration. The problem is not solved ; 
 one of its elements is simply denied recognition. 
 
 We need not explain at length the Latin point of 
 view, since it is exactly the reverse of the Anglo-Saxon. 
 The French seems to care nothing, or very little, about 
 the immediate consequences of theories expressed in 
 works of art which are within reach of the general 
 public. They act as if the mediocre-minded masses 
 did not exist at all, or as if they ought to be at least 
 wise enough to leave alone what they cannot under- 
 stand. Therefore, if an author has some valuable idea 
 to propose, whatever it may be, he expresses it regard- 
 less of consequences, the result being that it may do 
 a great deal of harm; for some will twist ideas, or 
 quote an author to justify their greed, their lust, their 
 passions. 
 
 While the Anglo-Saxon point of view, as we have 
 seen, safeguards public morality at the expense of 
 freedom of art and of thought, the French point of 
 view, z-'ice versa, safeguards freedom of thought, some- 
 times at the expense of public morality. 
 
 When once this truth has been fully grasped with 
 its logical consequences in practical life, the contention 
 made in our introductory remarks can hardly be denied, 
 namely, that the two points of view are irreducible, at 
 least as long as the supporters of either remain consis- 
 tent ; for, either you take the ground that views which 
 are socially dangerous should be suppressed, or you 
 recognize the rights of free thought as more impor- 
 tant than any moral harm which may result from the 
 expression of such views. In the former case you 
 
LITERATURE AND MORAL CODE 275 
 
 necessarily limit the freedom of literature, in the latter 
 you disregard the welfare of modern democracy. 
 
 But why is it so? How is it that two countries 
 should adopt such widely different attitudes in their 
 conception of art? 
 
 The kind of literature produced will depend greatly, 
 as we have seen, upon what the reading public want; 
 and where there are wide contrasts in culture, educa- 
 tion, and social conditions, the public must be different. 
 It is futile to criticize authors from an abstract point 
 of view ; their works should be judged with reference 
 to the special public for which they were written. 
 
 Now in comparing, for instance, two countries like 
 America and France, one will be struck by this essen- 
 tial difference : in America there is held to be only one 
 general public, while in France this unity does not 
 exist; there is more than one public. It is true that 
 before the Revolution there was only one public for 
 literature, namely, the cultivated public; the mass of 
 the people did not even know how to read or write. 
 But after the Revolution conditions changed; democ- 
 racy soon created a demand for popular literature and 
 it was supplied. At the same time many authors 
 (Stendthal, Merimee, and others) objected to lowering 
 literature to the level of social democracy, keeping up 
 the traditions of a literature for an intellectual aris- 
 tocracy. The struggle continued all through the nine- 
 teenth century (think of men like Baudelaire, Barbey 
 d'Aurevilly, Flaubert, Leconte de ITsle, Villiers de 
 ITsle Adam). Even after the democratic ideals had 
 conquered in political and social life, a strong protest 
 was made against their acceptance in literature, the 
 group of authors known as " Symbolists '' proving 
 
276 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 especially fierce in their attacks against the invasion 
 of the bourgeois spirit. Their efforts have not been in 
 vain ; as a consequence, there are still in France two 
 literatures : the old, traditional, artistic literature which 
 requires culture on the part of the reader; and popu- 
 lar literature.^ Writers are not compelled to strike 
 the unhappy medium of mediocrity and remain within 
 the reach of all classes in order to find readers. They 
 generally choose at the beginning of their careers either 
 to write " up " or '' down." A sufficient amount of 
 literature is supplied fitted for the masses (exciting 
 slum stories like de Kock's, fighting stories like " The 
 Three Musketeers," love stories like " L'Abbe Con- 
 stantin ") ; and others who approach a subject seriously 
 and treat it thoroughly have another public that under- 
 stands them ; of course, a rather small public, the 
 truly educated public. 
 
 There are a few sporadic cases of authors of the 
 higher type who are read also by the general public, as, 
 e. g., Zola and Maupassant, whose art in telling stories 
 can be thoroughly enjoyed by people who do not in 
 the least care for, or understand their philosophy, just 
 as the fables of La Fontaine are enjoyed both by chil- 
 dren and by the deepest thinkers. Another exceptional 
 case is Victor Hugo; on the one hand his philosophy 
 is commonplace, and on this account he is very popular 
 with the masses while very much despised by profes- 
 sional critics; but on the other hand his admirable 
 mastery of the French tongue wins praise even from 
 the most exacting readers. 
 
 * I have given a short sketch of the history of this struggle between 
 the two literatures in France since the time of the French Revolution 
 up to our own day in an article in The Bookman (New York), 
 November, 1902. 
 
LITERATURE AND MORAL CODE 277 
 
 If one comes to look at things from this standpoint, 
 and regards the public, not as a kind of neutral entity, 
 but as a living agent which responds to literature and 
 art according to different degrees of culture and intel- 
 lectual attainment, the whole problem is transformed. 
 The question cannot be settled once for all from a 
 merely theoretical point of view and sub specie aeter- 
 natis; the truth is that a work of art — novel, drama, 
 painting, etc. — may be considered excellent in one 
 country and bad in another, and may be judged in like 
 manner with reference to two different publics in the 
 same country. The famous words of Pascal, " Verite 
 en dega des Pyrenees, erreur au dela," cannot yet be 
 used in a purely ironical sense; they express actual 
 condition. 
 
 We are not then surprised at the attitude taken in 
 regard to French literature or to the writings of Ber- 
 nard Shaw by the majority of moralists in America; 
 they read French authors and judge them bad because 
 their books are not suited for the general American 
 public, especially for the masses. But in France the 
 educated portion of society forms a separate circle 
 which allows not only the treatment of topics that 
 would be objectionable for the masses, but a treatment 
 of them from another than the conventional point of 
 view. 
 
 When one remembers that nearly all the orthodox 
 views of to-day were once heterodox, it may easily 
 follow that the moral standards held at present will 
 in time give place to others. Nev/ conceptions work 
 slowly ; but ideas advanced by the educated strata 
 of society gradually filter down to the uneducated. 
 Therefore, in the writer's opinion, an " aristocratic 
 
278 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 intellectuelle " is necessary, and in the long run will 
 contribute to the general welfare. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxons, in trying to keep from the 
 masses ideas which are not easily understood, admit 
 the existence of a sphere of thought above the compre- 
 hension of the general public. They thereby concede 
 the value of an independent elite. It is remarkable 
 that they pay special attention to the higher literature 
 in France, and write about it in papers and periodicals. 
 But an unexpected result is that in this way the litera- 
 ture for the elite in France is brought before the gen- 
 eral public in America — for which it was not intended 
 and is not suitable. Hence the severe judgments, from 
 a moral point of view, which are passed upon prod- 
 ucts of French literature. Such criticisms would be 
 right only if these works had been meant for the 
 general public. 
 
 From what has been said, it appears that really good 
 writers in France, because of their freedom to deal 
 with all subjects — even with those that touch the most 
 questionable social relations — are because of their 
 freedom, in an unusually favorable position as com- 
 pared with writers of some other countries. Among 
 American authors, for instance, literary art, to its dis- 
 advantage, is confined to narrower limits. But can it 
 be expected that the favorable conditions that prevail in 
 France will continue ? French authors have been com- 
 plaining bitterly in recent years of the forced " demo- 
 cratization " of literature and art — but especially of 
 literature — that is following closely upon the triumph 
 of democracy in social life. Many have gone so far 
 as to deny the blessings of democracy because they 
 see in the modern conceptions of life the doom of their 
 
LITERATURE AND MORAL CODE 279 
 
 artistic ideals, and they are unwilling to pay that price 
 for social progress. To them there is a real incom- 
 patibility between art and democracy. In the writer's 
 opinion, however, these protests are useless ; to try and 
 stop the formidable wave of democracy is to build a 
 wall of sand against the tides of the ocean. Renan, 
 who was much concerned with this problem, struck 
 what seems to be the most reasonable attitude. He 
 pointed out how idle was the attempt to oppose the 
 inevitable. He thought that the modern social evolu- 
 tion should be allowed to pursue its course without 
 interference. As for the few incorrigible social dream- 
 ers and literary idealists, he said they should try to 
 be content without endeavoring to convert the world 
 to their views. If they would leave the world alone 
 they would be left alone in their turn, and might be 
 much happier in their solitude than they think. 
 
 In this resignation advocated by Renan there is, no 
 doubt, a note of deep pessimism. One may neverthe- 
 less take a more hopeful view. Alongside of the 
 growth of democracy, another tendency, directly 
 springing from it, is gaining ground every day, namely, 
 cosmopolitanism, and in the effects of this tendency will 
 surely be felt in the higher spheres of life as elsewhere. 
 The educated classes of different countries instead of 
 each remaining almost completely isolated should come 
 into closer relations and understanding and assert their 
 vitality and permanence in the moral leadership of the 
 world. In fact, signs are not lacking which indicate 
 a slow movement in that direction. 
 
APPENDIX C 
 COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY* 
 
 "Per gemeine Ver stand hat in Sachen der Philosophic gar keine 
 Anspruche, als die welche jeder Gegenstand der Untersuchung 
 hat volkommen erkl'drt zu werden. Es ist nicht etwa darum zu 
 thun, zu beweisen dass wahr sei was er fur wahr halt, son- 
 dern nur darum die Unvermeidlichkeit seiner Tduschungen 
 aufzudecken." — Schelling (System des Transcendentalen 
 Idealismus). 
 
 Philosophy, abandoned for "common sense," partly because 
 some think we ought to put thought on the level of a demo- 
 
 ^ These pages, written in 1897 as an opening speech to a course of 
 lectures upon the History of Positivism before the " Faculte des 
 lettres " of the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland (and published 
 in the Revue Philosophigue, Jan., 1900), will not be out of place in 
 this volume. 
 
 I had just ended my studies; had sought to come in contact with 
 the great representatives of science of to-day, and it seemed to me that 
 philosophy was hesitating to face the problems with which circum- 
 stances made it imperative for it to grapple; that it was seeking 
 excuses not to follow^ out the route which it was incumbent upon it to 
 follow. A new eclecticism seemed to me to be looming up menac- 
 ingly on the horizon, not, as three quarters of a century ago, to react 
 against the great transcendental systems of the German thinkers, 
 but to set itself m opposition to the invasion of the scientific spirit. 
 I had taken a stand in opposition to this attitude of reserve, this timid 
 reaction in the name of common sense against the new spirit. But 
 I hardly suspected that at the very moment when I was writing this 
 inaugural lecture in a small university city of French Switzerland, 
 William James — whom I had learned to know as the author of 
 Psychology — was beginning to give shape to the essays of his volume, 
 The Will to Believe, the first step toward the pragmatism of to-day, 
 and that "pluralism," a philosophic conception allied to eclecticism, 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 281 
 
 cratic public and partly because scholars wish to protest 
 against the old metaphysics. 
 
 I. Vanity of common sense trying to solve questions that belong 
 to the sphere of science, such as the animal origin of man. 
 Common sense denpng facts (unconscious reasoning) ; de- 
 claring the true to be absurd (rotundity of the earth) ; con- 
 tradicting itself (notion of space ; relations of cause and effect). 
 
 n. Common sense facing vital problems: the problem of evil; 
 problem of the di\ine love. 
 
 III. Absurdities promulgated by common sense in the history 
 of human thought. Common sense offers practical and pro- 
 visional solutions of the problems presented to man; these 
 different solutions contradict one another; common sense 
 never co-ordinates them; a grotesque philosophical chaos 
 results from such attempts. If common sense sufficed to 
 solve the problems, it would never have been necessary for 
 philosophy to be born. Common sense will constantly sug- 
 gest new problems while putting in line incoherent answers, 
 but never solve any of them. 
 
 rV. Error of the philosophers of the common sense method, — 
 namely, that the same one that does not know and asks 
 (common sense) is the one that professes to answer, hence 
 to know. Solution of the difficulty: common sense asks a 
 reply from science ; philosophy appeals from poorly informed 
 reason to better informed reason. Philosophy effects a 
 synthesis of the results of science by verifying the results 
 reached by learned men in the different departments of in- 
 quiry, and by comparing them with each other; and little 
 by little building them up into a complete system of knowl- 
 
 was going to be systematically formulated by a man of such soaring 
 power and breadth of wing. 
 
 But it appears that my unpretending manifesto, the work of a 
 young professor, was a refutation of pragmatism in advance; for 
 pragmatism is the philosophy of common sense. Let me add that 
 certain arguments that I could not allow myself to make in chapters 
 referring to the concrete affirmations of William James and other 
 members of his school, I would naturally offer them at that former 
 occasion, and that therefore Common Sense and Philosophy is both a 
 complement of the preceding pages and a resume of the main problem 
 broached in this volume. 
 
282 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 edge; being furthermore aware to-day of the limits of the 
 human reason, it no longer shows a tendency to rise into 
 the sphere of metaphysics. 
 
 Philosophy, as an object of independent study, is 
 passing through a critical period of neglect. It is not 
 even attacked any more. It is barely discussed now 
 and then. It is laid aside like an old sword. Even the 
 name of it is not always respected. Thus in America, 
 where at first, in accordance with English usage, phi- 
 losophy signified natural science, the word is reserved 
 now for metaphysics; philosophers there are the kind 
 of people who occupy themselves with insoluble and 
 empty problems, or people who balance the world on 
 the point of a pin, or, may be, theologians. To call a 
 psychologist a philosopher is almost an insult. 
 
 What has happened? For ages past men have ad- 
 dressed themselves to philosophy for the solution of 
 the problems that lay nearest their hearts ; how is it 
 that they suddenly profess they can do without it? 
 The object of philosophy has been much discussed; 
 yet, in a general way, all admit that it seeks to intro- 
 duce unity into our knowledge and our ideas. Now, 
 there have never before been so many branches of 
 knowledge and so many ideas requiring to be co- 
 ordinated and subordinated the one to the other, as at 
 the present time. The scientists, busied with their spe- 
 cialties, rarely trouble themselves about this. As 
 Comte and Mill have already said, the specialization 
 of work produces, in this respect, effects that are to be 
 regretted. Imagine a young student of our days face to 
 face with the jumbled and confused edifice of science. 
 Leaving a course in theology, in which he has heard the 
 Children of Israel spoken of according to the tradi- 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 283 
 
 tional chronology which places the origin of the world 
 at five or six thousand years before Christ, he next 
 attends a course on geology, and there learns that the 
 epoch of the origin of the world must be carried back 
 millions of years ; and, finally, at a course in anthro- 
 pology he learns that the appearance of man himself 
 upon the earth ought probably to be placed a million 
 years back. In a laboratory of chemistry they have 
 told him that the world is composed — or, for the pur- 
 poses of science, must be conceived as being composed 
 — of elements infinitely small; then in a course on 
 philosophy or logic it is proved to him in the most 
 unequivocal way that the infinitely small, as well as the 
 infinitely great, is inconceivable or unthinkable. A 
 spiritualistic psychologist sets forth and develops the 
 idea of the superiority of mind, which dominates the 
 body and rules it as it pleases : emotion takes posses- 
 sion of us, the body sheds tears; the intellect decides 
 that such or such an action is expedient, the will inter- 
 venes and the body obeys its orders. But a physiolo- 
 gist comes along and proves that a man gifted with a 
 large brain, or a brain creased with many crinkled con- 
 volutions is more intelligent than a man with a small 
 brain or a brain slightly fretted with grooves ; that a 
 man whose body contains a certain quantity of alcohol 
 suddenly loses his reason ; that a woman who has no 
 bust and little hair has an irresistible proneness to 
 lubricity; that a man who has passed into the condi- 
 tion of a eunuch becomes a woman in character — in 
 short, that there are no inner states of man that are 
 not the echo of a physical state. Again, a professor 
 of history points out the influence of great individu- 
 alities upon the course of human affairs, either dedi- 
 
284 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 eating a kind of worship to these providential arrivals 
 on the planet, such as Carlyle or Comte, or else cursing 
 them, as Proudhon did Napoleon I, or even recon- 
 structing history, like Renouvier in his Ouchronie; 
 but then at the same time an ethnologist or a sociolo- 
 gist affirms that the great personalities of history are 
 only the children of circumstances, that chance favored 
 their greatness. — And so one might go on a long time 
 multiplying illustrations like these and showing that 
 efforts the objects of which should be to convert this 
 chaos into order would be far from useless, and that 
 never have men had so great need of philosophy as 
 to-day. 
 
 It is quite true that it is just this state of things that 
 has caused discouragement in many. Amid so many 
 divergent opinions, and data contradicting the reason 
 itself, how open up a road to the truth ? Yet men will 
 never willingly remain in doubt, or at least only a very 
 small minority could endure such a state. Our mind 
 is so constituted that it will invent solutions rather than 
 stand before an open problem. Besides, the old 
 dilemma of Aristotle is the echo of a voice that makes 
 itself heard in every person who thinks : " If we must 
 philosophize, why then, we must philosophize; if we 
 ought not to philosophize, we must still philosophize 
 (to demonstrate it) ; so we must always philosophize." 
 If, then, scepticism is the attribute of very few men, 
 what is it that has taken the place of philosophy? I 
 answer without circumlocution, it is that vague thing 
 called '' common sense," which to-day enjoys the 
 authority formerly vested in the greatest geniuses of 
 humanity alone ; it is supposed that the reply to so 
 many questions, which is often sought for in regions 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 285 
 
 remote and often inaccessible, is not so very far from 
 us; it must be within us. Let us only not stifle our 
 reason beneath subtleties and sophisms and it will 
 spontaneously offer us a means of remedying the con- 
 fusion and embarrassment that philosophers have cre- 
 ated by strewing the ground with the debris of former 
 thoughts and beliefs. 
 
 The idea of appealing to common sense is not a new 
 one. Socrates did so for the sake of disabusing the 
 Athenians of their errors ; and after him the Sophists 
 did the same. Yet it was for them a defensive weapon ; 
 they did not make use of it so much for the purpose of 
 constructing a philosophy as for ruining one that 
 seemed to them bad. With certain Encyclopaedists 
 (Voltaire at their head), the Scotch and the Eclectics 
 in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is differ- 
 ent. Common sense is by them clearly and, so to 
 speak, officially declared to be the source of truth. An 
 article by Jouffroy (in his Melanges) bears this very 
 term as title. And to-day (a still more remarkable 
 spectacle) we see philistine and savant wearing the 
 same caps. Of course, it is not exactly the same kind 
 of motives that inspire these two classes of persons. 
 One class replaces philosophy by common sense be- 
 cause, in our democratic age, they experience the need 
 of bringing down to their level what they have been 
 persuaded is accessible to all ; the other works by re- 
 action — explicable in some degree, but nevertheless 
 fatal — against a certain philosophic temper that mani- 
 fested itself in an epoch relatively near our own. 
 
 My aim in these pages is to set myself against this 
 dethronement of philosophy, and to protest against a 
 misunderstanding that authorizes any kind of a person 
 
286 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 to set up as an impromptu philosopher by arming him- 
 self with common sense, like Don Quixote of old with 
 his pasteboard helmet. I believe the enemy to be more 
 dangerous than he appears. If some of my reasonings 
 seem a little too unsophisticated to appear here, my 
 hearers will pardon me when they reflect that common 
 sense cannot be better refuted than by common sense 
 itself. 
 
 Common sense, left to itself, settles nothing. 
 
 In the first place, there are cases in which the ques- 
 tion is solely one of facts; and here it is not even 
 necessary to give examples. Thus, as far as relates 
 to discussions on the age of the globe we inhabit, or 
 the age of the human race, it is evident that no one 
 can dream of solving such problems by common sense 
 alone. They are questions of science; we either 
 know or do not know. Yet it would be a mistake to 
 think that common sense has never shown a desire 
 to intermeddle in the fields of pure science: have we 
 not all heard of very respectable people disposed to 
 reject in the name of " common sense " the somewhat 
 disconcerting assertion that man is descended from the 
 lower animals? 
 
 There are questions in which the futility of such an 
 attitude is still more manifest and yet in which com- 
 mon sense has been made to intervene, such as the 
 why and wherefore of the laws of nature. For ex- 
 ample here is the law of inertia in physics. It states 
 that movement takes place, first, in a straight line, and 
 secondly, at a uniform rate of speed. Now (says com- 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 287 
 
 mon sense) if movement takes place in a straight line, 
 it is because the moving object, not having any reason 
 to deviate to one side or the other, naturally keeps on 
 its way in a straight line. Yet the insufficiency of this 
 professed explanation appears at the first glance. In the 
 first place, how do we know whether or not the moving 
 object has a reason for deviating; and, secondly, even 
 if it were proved that it has no reason for deviating, 
 has it, by the same token, any more reason for going 
 in a straight line ? A man who is walking without any 
 other end than that of walking, finds himself con- 
 fronted by three roads, one in front of him, one to the 
 right and one to the left. If he has no motive for 
 taking the right hand road or the left, does it there- 
 fore follow that he has one for taking the road that 
 faces him? None — or at the most that of not want- 
 ing to take the trouble to turn to the right or the left : 
 but this is just verifying the law of inertia, not ex- 
 plaining it. The existence of the law of inertia is a 
 matter of observation, and the desire to account for 
 it by common sense is illusory. The best proof of it 
 is that before Kepler had laid down this law, the con- 
 tinuation in a straight line of a moving object was by 
 no means admitted to be natural a priori. On the 
 contrary, Aristotle deemed the circle to be the simplest 
 and most perfect line ; hence his individual common 
 sense — which v;as certainly not a mediocre one — told 
 him that normal motion was circular motion ; and the 
 geometers of to-day are on Aristotle's side.^ 
 
 ^ Hobbes was still uncertain whether the straight line or the curved 
 line is the line of normal motion (cf. Tonnies: Hobbes, Leben und 
 Lehre, p. 139). The symbolic role played by the circle and the sphere 
 in Frobel's system is well known. With him the sphere is the symbol 
 
28S ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 The same is true of the second part of the law, uni- 
 form movement. 
 
 Hence common sense plays a very silly role when it 
 professes to account for facts that we can only accept 
 such as nature presents them to us. 
 
 There are phenomena in the presence of which com- 
 mon sense realizes its own insufficiency ; but as the 
 confession would cost it dear, it executes a flank move- 
 ment around the difficulty. The duly authenticated 
 facts are simply denied, such as, for instance (in psy- 
 chology), unconscious or subconscious thought and 
 reasoning. Indeed, the devotee of common sense im- 
 agined to turn into ridicule this latest " discovery," or 
 to excommunicate it ex cathedra out of science. And 
 yet it is clearly ascertained that we often think and 
 reason without knowing it. People have fallen foul 
 of a word: to reason (they say) presupposes con- 
 sciousness, and to reason without knowing it is an 
 absurd and contradictory notion. They don't see that 
 in saying this they are affirming what is precisely the 
 point at issue. They claim that the ability to reason 
 pertains solely to the conscious mind; they do not 
 prove it. It has become almost a commonplace thing 
 to allude to the convincing experiments upon hypno- 
 tized or anaesthetized persons; but let us mention 
 briefly two of the most striking. 
 
 A person is trying to think of a word very familiar 
 to him but which he cannot at the moment recall. He 
 has one arm anaesthetized ; I mean by that everything 
 that takes place in that arm is foreign to the conscious- 
 ness. During the investigation you slip a pencil into 
 
 of unity; the child must begin by playing with a ball; the cube, 
 which succeeds the ball, is the symbol of diversity in unity. 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 2S9 
 
 the anaesthetized hand ; the hand will write the word 
 that is sought; when placed before the eyes of the 
 subject he will immediately recognize it. 
 
 Another example will show us that not only do we 
 think unconsciously, but that our intellect actually 
 works without our suspecting it. Conceal the anaes- 
 thetized hand behind a screen, and by guiding it, cause 
 it to write down figures in a column as if for addition. 
 The conscious subject thus knows nothing of the fig- 
 ures ; but ask him to mention any number whatever 
 and he w411 give you for answer the sum of the written 
 figures. What is this if not unconscious calculation? 
 The subject undoubtedly performs a pretty compli- 
 cated intellectual operation. Common sense may pro- 
 test as it pleases, it will never make out that what 
 exists does not exist. And I do not even mention the 
 post-hypnotic phenomena, each one of which alone 
 constitutes an irrefutable proof of the existence of our 
 ability to think and will unconsciously. 
 
 However, there is no need of going so far afield; 
 we can establish the fact of unconscious reasoning 
 every day and in the case of any person. Many mer- 
 chants, while adding up their accounts with perfect 
 accuracy, are thinking of all kinds of subjects besides 
 their figures. Everyone who writes without making 
 mistakes in orthography applies incessantly rules of 
 grammar of which he is entirely unconscious at the 
 moment of writing ; in many cases you would very 
 much embarrass him if you asked him to state them. 
 In children also one finds numbers of good illustra- 
 tions. You set down a rule of three : " A merchant 
 buys cloth for 35 francs, receiving for that sum 175 
 metres; how many metres will he get for 55 francs? " 
 
 19 
 
290 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 The child does not understand, and to assist him you 
 propound a similar problem in a simpler form : " If 
 you get three apples for two cents, how many will you 
 get for four cents ? " He replies at once, " Six." — 
 " How did you do it ? " you then ask. Almost never 
 does the child know how to answer. I have tried this 
 experiment myself a hundred times. The child has 
 solved the problem, but he does not know how. We 
 call this unconscious reasoning. A master trained after 
 the tenets of the current philosophy of common sense 
 will be vexed, will threaten the pupil, punish him, for 
 not performing the same operation with larger figures. 
 It is unjust for all that; for, although the calculation 
 has positively been made, still the child knows nothing 
 of the operations to which he has had recourse; then 
 how ask him to repeat them with other figures?^ 
 
 I pass now to a class of examples in which we shall 
 find common sense showing still more evidently its 
 complete insufficiency; it no longer merely denies the 
 truth, it declares it to be absurd. No one in this day 
 is ignorant of the fact that the earth is not the centre 
 of the universe, nor even of the solar system, and that 
 it is round and inhabited in almost every part.^ But 
 these facts fly in the face of the most elementary com- 
 mon sense. If you explain clearly to the first child 
 
 * A similar observation has been made by Morgan, Introduction 
 to Comparative Psychology, London and New York, 1896, p. 229. 
 He solves the problem by supposing the intervention of a marginal 
 consciousness. Apart from the words, the point of view of Morgan 
 is the same as mine. 
 
 ^ The facts that militate against the theory of Laplace are not to be 
 taken into account here, for they do not touch upon the sphericity of 
 the terrestrial globe. See a few words on these objections in Certitude 
 Logique, G. Milhaud, second ed., Paris, F. Alcan, 1898, pp. 104-106. 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 291 
 
 you meet the consequences of his belief, namely, that 
 at the antipodes men are so situated that relatively to 
 us they hang with head down and feet up, the child 
 will laugh in your face. It is of no use for you to 
 point out that " down " means toward the centre of 
 the earth, and that if you start from there you are 
 rising whatever direction you take, for the relative 
 position of the body sticks in the mind, and common 
 sense continues to rebel against the truth.^ And let 
 me not to be reproached for selecting the common sense 
 of a child. Common sense is the same everywhere ; if 
 it were not so it would no longer be common sense. 
 Moreover, I should have no trouble in proving it in 
 the elementary case we are considering: 
 
 "Is it possible," cries Lactantius (one of the Fathers especially 
 hostile to philosophers), "that men can be absurd enough to 
 believe that the har\'ests and the trees hang downward in the 
 empty air on the other side of the earth and that men's feet are 
 above their heads ? If you ask them how they prove these mon- 
 strous assertions and how it is that objects do not tumble off 
 into space on that other side, they reply that things are so by 
 nature, that hesivy bodies tend toward the centre (of the earth), 
 as the spokes of a wheel to the hub, while light bodies, like clouds, 
 smoke, fire, tend from the centre toward the sky in all parts. Now 
 really I don't know what to say of people who, once they have 
 gone astray, obstinately persevere in their madness, and bolster 
 up one absurd opinion by another." 
 
 This proves, then, that the most serious common sense 
 can brand with madness the most incontestable truth. 
 
 * It is interesting to know that J. J. Rousseau remembered in later 
 life having had this very experience here mentioned; his father, he 
 says, tried in vain to explain to him the problem of the antipodes. 
 (See Ritter, Famille et Jeunesse de J. J. Rousseau, pp. 149-150.) 
 
292 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 They could not plead anything further than this same 
 madness, some centuries later, against such men as 
 Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Magellan. 
 
 Let me here indulge further in a short parenthesis, 
 to the effect that those who are fond of appealing to 
 common sense against their adversaries find very little 
 trouble in dispensing with it when the matter in hand 
 is the establishing of their own positions. Thus Saint 
 Augustine, who professes for the partisans of the 
 sphericity of the earth the same scornful pity as Lac- 
 tantius, among other arguments for the flatness of the 
 earth adds the two following : " It is impossible that 
 there are inhabitants on the other side of the earth 
 since no race among the descendants of Adam is men- 
 tioned in the Scriptures as being there." And besides : 
 " At the Judgment Day the men on the other side of 
 the globe could not see the Lord descending through 
 the air." 
 
 Common sense has so far explained nothing, or con- 
 tradicted the facts. I shall now examine whether com- 
 mon sense does not sometimes contradict itself. If 
 it does do so, then unless we admit that truth itself is 
 contradictory, or that there are several truths inde- 
 pendent one of the other, we shall be authorized to 
 definitively reject the intrusion of common sense into 
 the fabric of our knowledge. 
 
 Let us apply our common sense to the idea of space. 
 Space, considered as a whole, naturally comprises the 
 different parts of space. In other words, add together 
 all the parts of space and you must naturally obtain 
 space in its totality. Suppose, then, that you estimate 
 the parts of space known to you, and the parts beyond, 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 293 
 
 in cubic feet : space will be a fixed and precise whole, 
 — enormous, if you will, but, after all, a total calcu- 
 lable (by figures) in cubic feet; it will be a finite 
 whole. I do not claim that we can measure it; but in 
 itself it is measurable. For if you add one to the other 
 finite quantities, you will always obtain a new finite 
 quantity. Suppose, however, you transport yourself 
 to the confines of this space, the sum total of finite 
 spaces, beyond it what will you find ? New space. Try 
 a second, a third contingent of cubic metres, you will 
 still obtain a limit between two spaces, but not a limit 
 of space — and it is impossible for us to think that it 
 can ever be otherwise. It is your common sense that 
 teaches you this, just as a moment ago you said that 
 in adding together finite parts of space you would nec- 
 essarily obtain a totality of space. So space is finite, — 
 datum of common sense ; space is infinite, — datum 
 of common sense. The first position has the same 
 thrust of inexorableness as the second, and the second 
 as the first. Common sense contradicts common sense. 
 From this contradiction, which springs out of the 
 simple operations of our mind, we get the explanation 
 of the fact, so astonishing at first glance, that certain 
 so-called sophisms, put forth by the philosophers of 
 antiquity, have not yet been refuted. For example, the 
 celebrated argument about the hare and the tortoise, 
 in the writings of Zeno. Before he has got over the 
 last half of the space that separates him from the tor- 
 toise, the hare will not have outstripped his rival. Now 
 space, being infinitely divisible, there never will be a 
 last half ; the remaining space will always be divisible 
 into two parts. It is impossible to find a sense more 
 " common " than that which dictated this famous 
 
294 
 
 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 speculation of Zeno; and it is only the people who 
 think that common sense is the " open sesame " to 
 every problem who are astonished that, from Aristotle 
 to Hegel (after whom no one seriously tried, unless 
 we admit as a solution that proposed by M. Renouvier, 
 who declares that what Kant called contradictory is 
 simply incomprehensible), no one has succeeded in 
 refuting Zeno. 
 
 Perhaps some one will object that I am exploiting 
 regions of thought too remote from reality. Let me 
 choose, then, a more concrete example; for, even in 
 the most ordinary phenomena, common sense can be 
 caught red-handed in the very act of contradiction. 
 Every phenomena has a cause ; that is the law of laws. 
 The cause precedes the effect; such is the datum of 
 common sense. Now how can we know which is cause 
 and which is effect? Evidently (still repHes common 
 sense) it only needs that we see which one of the phe- 
 nomena precedes; it is the cause; the other, the one 
 that follows, is the effect. I rub a match on a box pre- 
 pared for the purpose ; it is lighted ; I put my finger 
 to the fire; I experience pain. From this I conclude 
 quite naturally that the cause of the pain is the fire; 
 the cause of the fire the combustion of the match ; the 
 cause of the combustion, the chemical preparation, etc., 
 — and not the contrary, that my pain is the cause of 
 the fire, the fire the cause of the rubbing of the match 
 on the box, etc. It seems to common sense that all this 
 is so. But let us take another example. I am a para- 
 lytic; I live near enough to a military ground to see 
 and hear from my window the manoeuvres of the 
 soldiers ; yet the distance is so great that I always see 
 the soldiers manoeuvre first and only afterwards hear 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 295 
 
 the command of the officer. I therefore conclude it 
 is the manoeuvre that is the cause, and the voice of the 
 officer is the effect. 
 
 Then common sense says, " Get yourself conveyed 
 near to the soldiers and each phenomena will assume 
 its proper place." 
 
 '' On the contrary, the result will be that my head 
 will be completely bewildered. Am I to believe in the 
 way things take place when I am at my window or 
 when I am right on the drill-ground ? " 
 
 " In the latter, because the propagation of light is 
 more rapid than the propagation of sound." 
 
 " But still, whence shall I derive the information ? 
 From experience, doubtless. But is it not by experi- 
 ence that I perceive that the movements of the soldiers 
 precede the voice of the officer? Why should one 
 experience be truer than another ? " 
 
 " Because your experience is an exception, and all 
 others in the domain of physics invalidate it. Return 
 home and you perceive the movements of the servant 
 following the orders of the mistress of the house ; you 
 yourself, if any one asks a service of you, consider 
 your action as the effect and not the cause of the re- 
 quest that has been made of you." 
 
 " Granted again. But does it never happen that 
 some one speaks after having seen something, for the 
 purpose of noting a fact? A person perceives a horse 
 passing and says, ' A horse.' I am, of course, allowed 
 to apply this to the officer without spoiling the vraisem- 
 blance, and I interpret things thus: I see the soldiers 
 manoeuvring ; the officer marks the evolutions and says 
 'march!' 'halt!' 'right!' Meft!'" 
 
 But enough. Even if it is proved to me that I am 
 
296 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 wrong in believing so naively in what is only an illu- 
 sion of my senses, what has been proved after all if not 
 just this, that common sense by itself is absolutely in- 
 sufficient to pass judgment upon phenomena in a sane 
 and accurate manner ? 
 
 II 
 
 If it be now granted that there are contradiction in 
 the judgments of common sense, still some one may 
 say that after all these petty contradictions are of little 
 importance. In such cases as that of the last illustra- 
 tion I grant it. Yet it is always vexatious to see people 
 persist in giving their confidence to a guide so untrust- 
 worthy especially when they profess to fathom the 
 profoundest human problems in its name. Then again, 
 can one be quite sure that the consequences of the 
 errors prompted by common sense are never danger- 
 ous? It would be rather strange if it were Hmited to 
 self-deception in questions of secondary importance. 
 A continuation of the investigation I have begun will 
 reveal the circumstance that, as a matter of fact, the 
 voice of common sense may in certain cases be singu- 
 larly distracting when men trust themselves to it. Phi- 
 losophers are sometimes accused of flinging out into 
 the world revolutionary theories. Let us admit the 
 fact; but it is equally true that in trusting ourselves 
 to common sense we shall reach conclusions that may 
 give points to the most dangerous doctrines that have 
 ever been enunciated by the most daring speculators. 
 
 It cannot be denied that it is common sense that lays 
 down the problem of the freedom of the will, first 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 297 
 
 affirming it and then denying it with irresistible force. 
 Now it has been shown profusely that this is not a 
 question of slight importance. Even philosophers most 
 convinced of the truth of determinism have in this 
 matter (with few exceptions) made a concession to 
 common sense by slipping freedom into their system 
 by some secret door and masking it more or less skil- 
 fully under the guise of determinism. As a matter of 
 fact, what becomes of ethics? What becomes of the 
 idea of responsibility ? What is sin ? — I commit a 
 fault, I steal ; why ? " On account of a propensity for 
 it," replies common sense. Whence do I get this pro- 
 pensity? From my character. And this comes from 
 where ? " From God," instantly replies common sense ; 
 or rather, I cannot make God responsible for my wicked 
 act, I get my character from my parents through hered- 
 ity. " But whence do my parents get it ? " says com- 
 mon sense once more. " From their own parents — " 
 and so on, back as far as the first man. Who created 
 the first man? "God," says common sense; or else 
 it says, " Why did Adam sin ? Was he not free not 
 to do so ? " But that is the very question. God did 
 not want him to sin, you say; in that case was it not 
 God's part to create him strong enough to resist the 
 temptation? . . . The partisans of common sense may 
 well despair, but above all let them not forget to make 
 responsible for this impasse that common sense which 
 they reproach philosophers so energetically with not 
 sufficiently respecting. 
 
 I have just spoken of God. In our day it is quite 
 often the theologians who invoke common sense with 
 the most thorough conviction. I shall therefore choose 
 a second example in the domain of religion. Ac- 
 
298 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 cording to common s^nse, God is the being who pos- 
 sesses the highest perfections; in one word he is 
 Love, which means he is good by nature, he cannot 
 help being good; and if he were not, we should not 
 worship him. " But," says common sense, replying to 
 itself, '* if God cannot help being good, if he is good 
 by nature, what merit is there in that? or, rather, is 
 this any longer being good? The sheep is also gentle 
 by nature; do we admire this quality in it as a merit 
 for which it deserves great credit? Or, inversely, do 
 we find the tiger to blame because he is cruel? On 
 the contrary; if he were not cruel he would not be a 
 tiger. Then what does the divine goodness turn out 
 to be? Every one of us, according to this reckoning 
 (that is, if we could not possibly do any wrong), would 
 be the most perfect being imaginable. Hence, also, if 
 we human beings sometimes do a good act which cost 
 us a good deal, we do more than God, better than God, 
 we are better than he. — Who of us has never thought 
 of this ? It is so simple ! In this case you forbid your- 
 self to think what you consider a blasphemy. But can 
 you do so long? And if, in spite of yourself, these 
 thoughts drift into your mind anew, is it common sense 
 that will banish them forever? No, because here 
 again it is precisely common sense that has introduced 
 them and given them shape. 
 
 Were they really much inferior to our shallow 
 modern rationalists, we ask ourselves, — those early 
 fathers of the Church when they stoutly affirmed their 
 Credo etsi absiirdum, made more emphatic by Ter- 
 tullian in his credo quia ahsurdumf . . . Mortuus est 
 Dei Filitis, credible est quia ineptiim est; et sepultus 
 resurrexit, certum est quia impossible est? . . . 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 299 
 
 III 
 
 I hope, after what precedes, that without fear of 
 being too presumptuous, I may venture to declare that 
 common sense is incapable of solving the questions 
 we ask when face to face with reality. Even from my 
 illustrations, and especially the last ones I made use of, 
 we may draw the conclusion that common sense, so far 
 from solving problems, propounds new ones, and that, 
 too, in the clearest and most ineluctable way. To ob- 
 stinately persist in sticking to common sense is to 
 condemn oneself a priori to dwell eternally before the 
 problems without ever becoming master of them. It 
 is not common sense that discovered in the sphere of 
 natural philosophy that fire, water, earth, and air are 
 not elements, but composite bodies ; it is not common 
 sense that discovered that the sun does not revolve 
 around the earth, but that the contrary is true; and 
 it is not common sense that will ever give an expla- 
 nation of unconscious thought; and, finally, it is not 
 common sense that will ever solve the old strangling 
 problem of free will, and so many others of a like im- 
 portance. In all these realms of thought it is only 
 stupid, and neither Darwin nor Lombroso, nor even 
 Nietzsche, will ever be refuted if we oppose to them 
 only this everlasting common sense. It is indeed pass- 
 ing strange that any one should ever have conceived 
 the idea of appealing to it. What does such an appeal 
 mean if not that the reason of a child or an ignorant 
 person is by nature empowered to pass judgment on 
 the results of the researches of all the choicest minds 
 
300 ANTI-PRAG MATISM 
 
 that humanity has produced? For, what really is 
 common sense? It is the child that strikes the piece 
 of furniture against which it has stumbled; it is the 
 savage who worships the river that fertilizes his fields, 
 or the sun that ripens his crops ; it is the great oriental 
 monarch who scourges and fetters with chains the 
 ocean that has the audacity not to comply with his 
 caprices as absolute autocrat. 
 
 And if you observe common sense at work in the 
 domain of science, it reveals itself as not less super- 
 ficial. It is Anaximmes who asserts that the air is the 
 vital principle, for if you place your hand over a man's 
 mouth to hinder him from breathing, life departs. Or 
 it is Heraclitus who claims that fire is the funda- 
 mental element of all things, the dry state being prefer- 
 able to the humid state, as appears from the fact that 
 a man overcome by wine loses his reason. Common 
 sense is Chrysippus, the stoic, denying that the brain 
 is the seat of the soul; it must be the breast for the 
 voice that gives outward expression to the thought, 
 issues from the breast and not from the head. It is 
 Epicurus who will have it that the stars are exactly of 
 the same size they appear to be, on the plea that if 
 distance diminished their size it would also diminish 
 the intensity of the light. It is the grave and immortal 
 Lucretius, who, in order to account for the lion's 
 fright at the crowing of the cock, thinks that, from the 
 body of the latter atoms are given off, which, entering 
 the lion's eye, cause it such acute pain that its courage 
 quails. It is Sextus Empiricus who classes rats among 
 animals produced by spontaneous combustion, because 
 they come out of the ground ; so likewise frogs are 
 generated out of the mud, and worms from the dung- 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 301 
 
 heap ; and, finally, bees are produced in the same way 
 from the carcasses of lions or from the carrion of 
 horses. Common sense is Pliny, holding it to be cer- 
 tain that gold and the diamond, being substances of 
 equal value, must be found in the same regions of the 
 earth. It is perchance Origen, who reveres the obscur- 
 ity of the Bible, the apostles having made it so on pur- 
 pose, " so that studious men and lovers of wisdom who 
 should come after them would have to buckle hard to 
 their task and find in it the inspiration for their flashes 
 of genius." It is even a Galileo, who affirms that, if 
 water rises in the pump it is because nature abhors a 
 vacuum. Again (to come down to recent times) com- 
 mon sense is pastor Sack, of Berlin, who thinks that if 
 cherries don't grow in winter it is because we don't 
 like them so well in the cold season ; and that if grapes 
 fail to ripen before autumn it is for the reason that the 
 new wine would be spoiled by the heat of summer. It 
 is even Hegel himself, who, having established his 
 quaternary system of the planets, declares the earth 
 to be the most perfect of the group to which it belongs, 
 because it alone is accompanied by a satellite, etc., etc. 
 Finally, as I mentioned at the start, men have even 
 tried to construct formal systems of philosophy on 
 common sense. Reid and his disciples and successors 
 have pitiably failed. This was fairly to be expected. 
 If common sense sufficed to settle all problems, there 
 never would have been any philosophy; there would 
 have been no need of it; problems bringing reason 
 into conflict with reason could never have appeared. 
 The mere fact of the possibility of a philosophy con- 
 demned at the very start the strange undertaking of 
 Reid. This accounts for the fact that philosophy of 
 
302 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 " common sense " was soon transformed into eclecti- 
 cism. It was Cousin in France who bestowed on his 
 country this bastard thing which only gets from phi- 
 losophy the name, and the echoes of which reverberate 
 to this day in books, possibly eloquent books, but in 
 which there is not a spark of the critical spirit that is 
 the father of philosophy. In fact, eclecticism is the 
 philosophy of opportunism ; that is to say, a philos- 
 ophy which can arrive only at casual truth. Moral 
 freedom seems necessary to us, in order to account 
 for the phenomena of the moral consciousness, the 
 voice of duty and the sentiment of responsibility. 
 Very well; you affirm moral freedom. But you have 
 nothing to do with this freedom if the matter in hand 
 is, for example, the punishing of a wrongdoer; for 
 if he is obliged (in the strict sense of the word) to 
 preserve his freedom of choice in the face of all the 
 different motives to action that present themselves to 
 his mind, the motives that you adduce for his doing 
 right can never, without clashing with your hypothesis, 
 influence him more forcibly than any other. Hence 
 your work is in vain. You may possibly punish an 
 individual for a past fault, but can never do anything 
 to prevent him, when given over to his own devices, 
 from lapsing again into the old fault. Very well 
 again; we will discuss subjects relating to the treat- 
 ment of wrongdoers (and in general every question of 
 education) by starting with the assumption of moral 
 determinism. 
 
 The idea of the finite is indispensable in science in 
 order to conceive of physical phenomena under the 
 form of laws ; without this idea of finiteness any kind 
 of natural philosophy is impossible. Hence the uni- 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 303 
 
 verse must be regarded under the concept of the finite. 
 On the other hand, in metaphysics, the infinite is the 
 first condition for speaking of the absolute; you must 
 therefore declare the universe infinite. To be obliged 
 to accept contradictory data — such will undoubtedly 
 be the fate of every philosophy which asks the help of 
 common sense to remove the difficulties caused by the 
 different notions or data of plain reason. Common 
 sense governs its actions in accordance with the fac- 
 tors that are immediately within its scope, and exam- 
 ines every problem on its own merits and as if it were 
 independent of all the phenomena with which it is not 
 directly connected. 
 
 Common sense is thus a kind of practical sense, 
 which, in every occurrence, succeeds in narrowing its 
 inquiry in order to find a solution appropriate to the 
 special case. In virtue of this it may evidently be a 
 very useful thing, but it none the less begets a merely 
 provisional philosophy or science. Now a perfect sci- 
 ence, a science in the proper sense of the word, is one 
 that takes account of all the phenomena conjointly and 
 simultaneously. It cannot be restricted to certain phe- 
 nomena independently of others without being un- 
 faithful to its mission. Voltaire, who has all sorts of 
 good reasons for speaking respectfully of common 
 sense, is none the less compelled to recognize that it 
 has not a very profound intrinsic value. " Common 
 sense," he says in his Philosophical Dictionary, " means 
 simply good sense, coarse common reason, the begin- 
 ning of reason, the first notion of ordinary things, 
 an intermediate state between stupidity and genius 
 {esprit). 'That man has not common sense' is a 
 gross insult. ' That man has common sense ' is also 
 
304 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 an insult; it means that he is not wholly stupid and 
 that he yet lacks what we call esprit." 
 
 We must never forget three things : 
 
 First, that truth is one. 
 
 Second, that the solutions of concrete questions are 
 always derived from the solutions of more general 
 problems. It is, on the whole, a profound mistake of 
 the partisans of common sense to pretend that they 
 appeal to common sense only : they really appeal to a 
 superficial and confused science which they have 
 acquired, and to which they unconsciously trust. 
 Whether this science comes to them from their educa- 
 tion, their environment, or otherwise, matters little. 
 Jouffroy, who does not seem to me to have contributed 
 much to illuminate the question, nevertheless, in his 
 article on the subject has given this very accurate 
 definition : " Common sense is nothing more than a col- 
 lection of solutions of the questions that trouble philos- 
 ophers; it is therefore another philosophy anterior to 
 philosophy properly so called, inasmuch as it occurs 
 spontaneously in the ground-work of all minds, inde- 
 pendently of any scientific research on their part." 
 (Melanges, 1838, p. 145.) Common sense, then, itself 
 speaks in the name of this anterior philosophy or this 
 anterior science. Hence, if it really wishes to claim 
 some value, these foundation principles — which it 
 does not establish, but takes for granted — must them- 
 selves be safe from all criticism. For instance, if some 
 one asks us to decide between two types of men, as to 
 which acts in accordance with truth, — the one who 
 rejoices at the birth of a child or the one who in the 
 same circumstances laments, we shall, of course, decide 
 in accordance with common sense; but common sense 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 305 
 
 will itself reply according to the reply to an anterior 
 problem, — the problem of what life is worth, and 
 which for yourself you consider as settled; and it is 
 because you consider the former as settled that you can 
 reply to the latter according to what you call your 
 common sense; the former problem being solved by 
 different nations in a diametrically opposite way, com- 
 mon sense will also produce opinions diametrically 
 opposite. Just so far, then, as Jouffroy is right in his 
 definition, so far is he wrong when (in conformity, 
 by the way, to the school to which he belongs) he 
 claims that common sense and truth are always iden- 
 tical. To make this acceptable, two contrary opinions 
 would have to be true at the same time. 
 
 Thirdly, neither must we forget when it is desired 
 to appeal to common sense, that, if problems can be 
 separated theoretically, it is otherwise with reality. 
 Hence, so long as you allow yourself to be guided in 
 each special case, by common sense, philosophical con- 
 flicts are inevitable. Doubtless you may in one chap- 
 ter on ethics develop the idea of duty which calls for 
 the sacrifice of your happiness, and, in another the 
 idea that man always seeks his own happiness and 
 always finds it in the fulfilling of duty. You may, 
 I say, theoretically solve the relations of duty and hap- 
 piness in these two diametrically opposite ways. All 
 you have to do is to forget in one chapter what you 
 have said in another. But philosophically you cannot 
 employ both the principles at once. It remains that 
 either duty is the renouncement of happiness, or that 
 duty is the means of happiness. It is in vain for you 
 to say that there is real happiness and imaginary hap- 
 piness; you are forced to recognize that there is only 
 
3o6 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 one true and it is about that that you must speak. In 
 the same way, if you distinguish between temporal 
 happiness and eternal happiness, one only is happiness 
 in the positive sense of the word, and you would con- 
 tradict yourself, if embodying two different ideas at 
 the same time in the same term, you should adopt now 
 one meaning and now another, according to the con- 
 venience of the discussion. In natural history it is 
 the same. Suppose you agree that there is a qualita- 
 tive difference between the animal kingdom and the 
 vegetable kingdom; theoretically you may very prop- 
 erly assign the protozoa to a course in botany; and 
 another professor can just as conveniently present 
 them in a course on zoology; the protozoa have the 
 characteristics of each kingdom. But if there is a real 
 difference between the two kingdoms; that is to say, 
 if a vegetable is not an animal, and vice versa if an 
 animal is not a vegetable, the same individual cannot 
 be both at the same time. In the history of science we 
 have a famous example of this process in the astro- 
 nomical system of Tycho Brahe, who tried to unite 
 in one system the Ptolemaic doctrine and the Coper- 
 nican doctrine of the relative motions of the earth and 
 the sun. 
 
 IV 
 
 But it is now time to make a remark that doubtless 
 the reader has long ago made on his own account. If 
 it be agreed that common sense settles nothing; that, 
 on the contrary, it incessantly gives rise to new prob- 
 lems, and, if we listen to it, it gets us into more inex- 
 tricable confusion, how is it then with philosophy? — 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 307 
 
 for, as a matter of course, it is this we are thinking of 
 putting in the place of the caput mortuum. What is 
 common sense after all but simply reason? and to 
 what do we wish to appeal in the search for truth if 
 not to reason? Hence if the common sense — or the 
 reason, since they are one — pitiably fails, is not philos- 
 ophy condemned to precisely the same fate when it 
 puts its shoulder to the wheel in its turn ? 
 
 It is true that reason and common sense are not very 
 different from each other, and that even if we reserve 
 the word " reason " for scientists, and " common 
 sense " for the argumentation of the masses, still com- 
 mon sense, more exempt from prejudice in many 
 things than is the thought of the most conscientious 
 scientist, often reasons more accurately than the rea- 
 son itself. To conclude, then, it must be true — how 
 shall we escape from this result? — that philosophy 
 will become bankrupt as well as common sense; but 
 only so, however, if what is asked of her is a response 
 to the problems the existence of which she herself, or 
 common sense, has revealed to us in so imperious a 
 way. But indeed perhaps such response is not at all 
 what philosophy pretends to give. We only seek for 
 something when we have not got it ourselves. In case 
 we already possess it there is no need of any search. 
 And here I put a finger right on the error of the 
 method extolled by the philosophers of common sense. 
 With them the last-named function of the mind must 
 play at the same time the role of asker and answerer. 
 Now this is illogical — I hope that common sense itself 
 will grant that, — that the same faculty that knows 
 not and asks, should pretend to reply, — that is, to 
 know. 
 
3o8 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 Philosophy must take care not to fall into the snare 
 laid for her by reason, in whose name she acts. " Phi- 
 losophia non ipsa sapientia (said Lactantius, who, 
 thinking to deal a mortal blow at philosophy, only ex- 
 pressed a fact which does not in the least disturb us), 
 sed quaerit sapientiam." Once more, then, if philos- 
 ophy does seek the truth, it is to say clearly enough 
 that she does not pretend to offer it to anybody. 
 
 But from whom shall she seek it? From science; 
 or rather, from the different sciences. If common 
 sense deceives herself, it is because she appeals to the 
 partial and imperfect science that individual men pos- 
 sess ; it is this science that must be corrected and com- 
 pleted. And for the sake of clearness, I remark that 
 in science I put psychology, ethics, aesthetics, even the 
 theory of knowledge and logic. It is the relics of an 
 old-fashioned terminology and method of thought that 
 make us generally consider the just mentioned four 
 sciences as species under the genus philosophy. Every 
 science has a precise object, a separate and limited 
 domain of truth to investigate. And such is certainly 
 the case with psychology, ethics, aesthetics, and logic. 
 If we insist on regarding these as branches of philos- 
 ophy, then mechanics, botany, and physiology have as 
 good a right to the title. The meaning that I com- 
 mend for the word " philosophy " is the one that long 
 prevailed in former centuries ; namely, that philosophy 
 has no special object, she aims at the truth in its en- 
 semble. It is not proper, however, to identify philos- 
 ophy with a universal science of which the separate 
 sciences should only be parts. In that way we should 
 fall into the error pointed out in the case of the com- 
 mon sense philosophy: philosophy would be seeking 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 309 
 
 what it already possessed. Thus conceived, moreover, 
 it would be destined to exist only in a far-removed and 
 very problematical future, when nature would have for 
 us no further problem. 
 
 The role of philosophy, as I figure it out, may be 
 defined in the following way : 
 
 1. It creates science, in so far as it shows its neces- 
 sity. Indeed, while stating problems — and we have 
 seen that it need not take much trouble to do so — the 
 reason asks for their solution. Philosophy and science 
 had the same origin in point of time. This is but 
 natural, since the latter's task was the elucidation of 
 the enigmas propounded by the former. So in ancient 
 times the philosopher and the man of science were 
 generally one and the same. But a moment was to 
 come when this task would be beyond the powers of 
 science. In her domain one problem solved would 
 bring on others the difficulty and number of which 
 would go on ever increasing. Science, which had to 
 correspondingly divide up her powers, demanded the 
 entire attention of man, while the task of philosophy 
 was correspondingly extended and complicated. 
 
 2. Philosophy has to bring to bear a large part of 
 her energy in removing everything which is of such a 
 nature as to trammel the progress of science, either in 
 blocking its road or in contesting its positive results 
 in the name of prejudices, or in introducing elements 
 which, so far from explaining, on the contrary hinder 
 its progress toward the truth. Philosophy, following 
 
3IO ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 out the same line of thought, must also set aside with- 
 out ceremony a certain number of problems which at 
 the very start we can declare to be insoluble by the 
 knowing faculties with which we are endowed. Al- 
 though logically this is one of the first functions she 
 has to perform, yet philosophy did not acquire a knowl- 
 edge of this part of her activity until after all the 
 others. This can be very naturally explained, how- 
 ever; the insoluble enigmas are the greatest, and are 
 also the first that human reason will propose to solve. 
 He solves them in a very gross way; then he corrects 
 his explications as fast as necessity requires, up to the 
 time when he sees that contradictions, far from disap- 
 pearing, keep ever accumulating. It is only after cen- 
 turies of trial that he gives up, and that at last (with 
 Kant) he gets so far as to demonstrate that they are 
 a priori insoluble ; that is to say, that the contradiction 
 lies in the laws of thought itself. 
 
 3. Philosophy examines the explanations that scien- 
 tific men hand over to us in response to the problems 
 given them and declares whether they are satisfactory 
 or not. They are frequently found to be in disagree- 
 ment with reality. It is then the part of the philoso- 
 pher to dismiss them and declare their attempt at reply 
 to be null and void. It happens none the less fre- 
 quently that an explanation made in a certain depart- 
 ment of science is in conflict with an explanation made 
 in another department of science. In this case again, 
 the learned investigator, being wholly absorbed in the 
 special study he is pursuing, it falls to the philosopher 
 to intervene and point out to each worker the objection 
 with which he is confronted in consequence of the dis- 
 coveries of his competitor. The same duty is his, in 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 311 
 
 the case of a single department when the results of 
 special researches are irreconcilable. 
 
 Furthermore, the role of philosophy is not always 
 purely negative, as might seem to be the case after 
 what has been said. It frequently happens that phi- 
 losophy is in a position to determine the cause of the 
 conflict, or even to prevent possible disputes between 
 savants. Her constant object is this: to direct scien- 
 tific activity and put on the right road the science that 
 is going astray. 
 
 4. Finally, in virtue of its independent position and 
 its task of collecting all the replies of science, and com- 
 paring them first with reality and then with each other, 
 philosophy encounters still another piece of work of 
 considerable value, — that of drawing attention to the 
 close relations possible between two departments of 
 human thought which frequently seem strangers to 
 each other, and in which, in consequence of the special- 
 ization of scientific work, each had lost sight of the 
 other. Thus it is the intervention of philosophy that 
 has brought about the close union between the science 
 of the law and alienists in medicine; it is philosophy 
 also who has effected, and not without difficulty, con- 
 sidering the prejudices she had to conquer, that work- 
 ing alliance, so powerful and fertile in results to-day, 
 between physiology and psychology. 
 
 To sum up all in a sentence, philosophy is coming 
 to the aid of science in her laborious task of partu- 
 rition. Socrates practised obstetrics upon individuals ; 
 philosophy, better aware of her powers to-day, and 
 conscious of the grandeur of science, is practising upon 
 the latter this delicate art. In this way (and not like 
 the 2o<j!)ia of Valentinian gnosticism, which is consumed 
 
312 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 with love for the pv66<s^ or abysm, and, seeing her 
 passion unrcturned, absolutely desires to give birth to 
 a child all alone, and ends by bringing into the world 
 an cK rptu/Att or shapeless abortion) — in this way, I 
 repeat, philosophy may hope to arrive some day at the 
 solution of the very problems that have given birth to 
 herself. In other words, our entire investigation may 
 be expressed thus : philosophy appeals from poorly in- 
 formed reason to better informed reason. 
 
 Comte, in the first lecture of his Cours de philosophie 
 positive, has written a page which I beg to recall to 
 your memory : 
 
 " Let there be a new class of scientists," he says, " prepared 
 by a suitable education, who, without giving themselves up to 
 the special cultivation of any particular branch of natural philos- 
 ophy, shall occupy themselves solely in considering the different 
 positive sciences in their present state, in determining the pre- 
 cise spirit of each of them, in discovering their relations and 
 their concatenation, in summing up, if possible, all their individ- 
 ual principles in a less number of common principles, while 
 always conforming to the fundamental maxims of the positive 
 method. At the same time, let the other scientists, before giving 
 themselves up to their respective specialties, be henceforth fitted 
 by an education acquired with reference to the ensemble of the 
 positive branches of knowledge, to at once profit by the light 
 diffused by those savants who are devoted to the study of general- 
 izations, and to mutually correct the results of their labors, — 
 a state of things to which the scientists of our time are visibly 
 approximating from day to day. . . . With a distinct class, ever 
 checked or controlled by all the others, the special and permanent 
 function of which would be to relate each new special discovery 
 to the general system, we should have no longer to fear that a 
 too great attention bestowed on details would ever hinder the 
 perception of the whole" (pp. 27, 28). 
 
COMMON SENSE AND PHILOSOPHY 313 
 
 All this is excellent, and Comte himself magnifi- 
 cently illustrated it in the six volumes of Coiirs de 
 philosophie positive. It is not just that the scientists 
 themselves should be burdened with a task that grows 
 heavier every day; they have enough to do in their 
 own special domain. Only, Comte is wrong in speaking 
 of a nezu class. He wrongly saw in his predecessors 
 only obstinate metaphysicians, and judged them too 
 much without studying them; true philosophers have 
 only become very rare for quite a while. But Fichte, 
 in several of his more important treatises, and Hegel 
 and Schelling everywhere (to select the most incrimi- 
 nated) were neither more nor less than philosophers 
 of the exact kind dreamed of by Comte. Schelling 
 above all, is remarkable from this point of view. His 
 aim was always to reach a grand synthesis of the dif- 
 ferent branches of human knowledge. Doubtless 
 questions of metaphysics are more resolutely shunned 
 to-day. For a long time now we have not seen a com- 
 plete synthesis, a rounded-out system; but it is not 
 because unity in the domain of thought has been given 
 up, but only because it is not considered that it can be 
 so easily attained ; it is not by choice, but by necessity. 
 
 Let us here call to mind that there are many more 
 chances of impartiality in the results, if we secure this 
 special class of philosophical scientists, since the temp- 
 tation to give more credit and weight to one class of 
 facts than to another is in this way avoided. More- 
 over, a disinterested philosopher has more chance of 
 gaining general confidence than have specialists, — 
 particularly in our day, when, it must be admitted, that 
 while vigorous and profound thought is more fre- 
 quently found on the side of the natural sciences, often 
 
3 14 ANTI-PRAGMATISM 
 
 destructive arguments are upheld by specialists in 
 these branches of knowledge in a manner rather intimi- 
 dating to those who do not ordinarily move in their 
 sphere. Scientific men themselves should joyfully wel- 
 come the restoration of this class of workers. It is easy 
 to understand their prejudice against philosophers, 
 who, during centuries, have held them in check. But 
 is there anything less scientific than to repulse the spec- 
 ulations of the philosophers of the future on the plea 
 that those of the past (formed, too, under very differ- 
 ent conditions) are not up to the mark of the scientific 
 acquirements of to-day? 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Lyman, 216 
 
 Adler, Felix, 137, 150 
 
 Agnosticism, 218 
 
 American mind analyzed (its prag- 
 matism), 1 1 5-123 
 
 Arabian ISlights, 248 
 
 Aristocracy of the intellect v. 
 democracy, Part III, Chap. 2. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 169 
 
 Bayle, 174, 175 
 
 Bargy, 135, 239; his book on Re- 
 ligion in Society in the United 
 States, 133 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 190 
 
 Bergson, H., 39, note 
 
 Bertaud, 262, 266 
 
 Bible, The, 138, 142 
 
 Boutroux, Emile, 23, note; 81, 
 note; 221 
 
 Bradley, 161 
 
 Carus, Dr., 255 
 
 Caste, 232 
 
 Catholicism, reaction toward (the 
 
 "Oxford movement"), 192, 193 
 Compajnre, M. G., 255, note; 267, 
 
 note 
 Condillac, 181 
 Conscience, 129 
 
 Consciousness, marginal, 290, note 
 Converse, Mr., Pres. Baldwin 
 
 Locomotive Works, 144, 145 
 Credo quia absurdum, 168-172 
 Creighton, Prof. J. E., 36, 37; 44, 
 
 note; 61, note; 85, note; 255 
 
 D'AvENEL, Viscount, 214 
 Democracy an absurdity, 223, and 
 
 Part III, Chap. 2, passim; on 
 
 trial, 234-236 
 
 Descartes, 169 
 
 Dewey, Prof. John, 29, note; 
 
 Chap. 2, passim; 253, note; 
 
 267 
 Dogmas, reUgious, 133-136 
 Draper, J, W., 217, 218, note 
 Durkheim, Emile, 105 
 
 Education, pseudo, 243, 244 
 £lite. The American, defined, 114, 
 
 115 
 Emerson, 216 
 Mmile, 178 
 Ethical Culture Societies, 30, note; 
 
 136, 137 
 Ethics, 128 
 
 Faguet, M., 267 
 
 Families, small size of cultivated 
 
 American, 213-215 
 Fichte, 186 
 
 Fouillee, Alf., quoted, 128 
 Foxes' tails, 83 
 France, intellectual aristocracy of, 
 
 230, 232 
 
 Gailord, Mrs., 141, 142 
 
 Ghent (socialist), 237 
 
 God, a punitive, 152, iSS-iS7; 
 
 asked to show his credentials, 
 
 201 
 
 Harriman, IIS 
 
 Hartmann, Von, 187 
 
 Hebert, Marcel, 23, note; 66, 251 
 
 Hegel, 186 
 
 Heliocentric theory, 44-48 
 
 Hibben, Prof. J. G., 43, note; 52, 
 
 note 
 Hindooism and Buddhism, 83, 
 
 oote 
 
3i6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hobbes, 169 
 Hoeffding, H., 81, note 
 Homo homini lupus, 127 
 Hugo, Victor, 230-233; 276 
 Hume, 170 
 
 Ingersoll, R. G., 217, note 
 Irwin-King, 71-73, 76 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 63 
 James, William, The typical prag- 
 matist and protagonist of prag- 
 matism, 78-79 note; his an- 
 thropomorphism (idea of God), 
 81-83, 86; Social Value of the 
 College-bred, quoted, 122; his 
 personal religion, 152; on re- 
 ligion in general, 152-159; as a 
 psychic researcher, 193; on 
 democracy, 234 ; biographical 
 notes on, 238-252; a pragma- 
 tist in the superior sense of the 
 word, 247; the difference be- 
 tween his philosophy and the 
 author's stated in a nut-shell, 249 
 James Henry, cited, 238 
 
 Kelvin, Lord, 193 
 
 Kant, 184, 185, 187, 195, 196 
 
 Lalande, a., 23, note; 71, 72 
 Leibnitz, 183 
 
 Le Roy, 43, note; 163, 164 
 Levy-Brlihl, L., 105-107 
 Locke, quoted, 63 
 
 Mackay-Smith, Bishop, 234, note 
 Materialism, 155, 218; scientific, 
 
 ii8 
 Meliorism of James, 48, 83, J20, 
 
 121 
 
 Moore, Professor, 253, note; 264, 
 
 267 
 Munsterberg, Professor, 244 
 
 Naville, a., 106, note; 266 
 New Hampshire, religion in, 149; 
 
 statistics of, 214, note 
 New York City, religion in,5i37-i47 
 
 Opportunism, 47-49 
 
 Panic of 1907 in Wall Street, 139- 
 
 147 
 
 Papini, Giovanni, 24, 51, 78-79, 
 note; 125-127 
 
 Pascal, 1 71-173 
 
 Paulhan, M. Fred., 267 
 
 Peirce, Charles, founder of modern 
 pragmatism, 23, note; 108 
 
 Persuasive ideal, 128 
 
 Phelps, Professor, 142 
 
 Philadelphia, religion in, 146, 147 
 
 Philosophers, how they all com- 
 promised with pragmatic scho- 
 lasticism, 168-173 
 
 Philosophy and science not always 
 applicable to life, 242 ff. 
 
 "Pluralism," 119 
 
 Pluralistic Universe, A., 73 
 
 Poe, Edgar, 231 
 
 Poincare, Jules Henri, 39, 40, 43 
 and note; 45 
 
 Pragmatism, definitions of, 23, 24; 
 main principles of. Chap. I, 
 passim; its pretensions, 53; 
 limits of, 57; and intellectualism 
 contrasted, 52-61; and Berke- 
 leyism, 79-81 ; its great strong- 
 hold is America, in flf. ; Ameri- 
 can, 1 1 5-1 23; English, 123- 
 125, 159-162; Italian, 125-127; 
 German, 182-187; ^ ^^^Y of 
 theology, 162; is the product of 
 a philosophic temperament, 163; 
 as modem scholasticism and the 
 ancilla iheologice et ecclesice, 
 166 flf. ; making a servant of 
 philosophy, 194; and science, 
 197; come to stay, 208; not a 
 question of race-stocks, 209 
 
 Pragmatism and The Will to Be- 
 lieve compared, 68, 69 
 
 Pragmatists, the three main argu- 
 ments of, 23-31; reference to 
 list of, 39, note; scientific and 
 ethical, 62-66, and Chap. II, 
 passim; their profession of 
 faith, 182 
 
INDEX 
 
 317 
 
 Pratt, J. B., 257 
 Pratt, Professor, 263, note 
 Pratt, Sereno S., 139-141 
 Princeton University, 147, note 
 Protagoras, 54 
 
 Psychic research, inspired by prag- 
 matism, 193 
 Ptolemaic system, 44-48 
 Punitive God, A, 152 
 
 "Quick Service for Business 
 Men," 143 
 
 Race suicide, 213-215 
 
 Religion in America, 130-147; 
 needed as a sanction, 130-151; 
 in Wall Street, 139-147; in 
 Philadelphia, 146; in New 
 Hampshire, 149; not moribund, 
 217 
 
 Rod, Edouard, 134 
 
 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 62, 176- 
 182; 291, note 
 
 Sabatier, 134 
 
 Schelling, 186 
 
 Schiller, G., xi, xvii, note; Chap. I, 
 passim; 30, note; vindicates the 
 "rationality of irrationalism," 
 
 50, note; 123, 159-162, 258- 
 
 262 
 Schopenhauer, 186, 187 
 Seth, Professor, 255 
 Shaftesbury, 175 
 Small, Prof. A. W., 115 
 Spencerianism, 118, 119 
 Spinoza, 170 
 Stephen, Leslie, 212, note 
 
 Theodicy, the new Jacobean, 
 
 202-204 
 True, the, 238 
 Truth, 120 
 Truths, the author's system of two, 
 
 250. 251 
 
 Unitarianism, 136, note 
 Universities, American, 130, 131, 
 
 note 
 Utilitarianism, 190, 191 
 
 Wall Street and the Panic of 
 
 1907, 139-145 
 White, Andrew D., 217, note 
 Whitman, Walt, 231 
 Will to Believe, The, 68, 69 
 Wolf, 183 
 
 Zeno, antinomies of, 174 
 
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