Page:Four and Twenty Minds.djvu/98



the sleepy world of modern philosophy F. C. S. Schiller stands for an idea which is very simple, and has for that very reason been long forgotten: the idea that theories should lead to practical results. Philosophy should be one of the moving forces of the world. Even speculative thought should be an instrument of change. Pure reason, rigid and static rationalism, and prudent objectivism are but myths or absurdities. There is no such thing as pure reason: reason is always impure, at least if one regards sentiment, purpose, and will, as elements of impurity. The immobile rationalism that claims to have pinned down truth in its theodicies, as a boy pins down a butterfly, is but the twaddle of degenerate Leibnitzians. The passive objectivism that waits resignedly to receive impressions, contemplates the slow formation of truth, and scorns those who go out to seek for truth, to pursue it, to impose it, to create it, to subject and master things instead of merely measuring or counting them—such passive objectivism is the