Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/391

Rh a variety of sources, and that they converged in the same direction was a coincidence; the case against them was based on 'misapprehensions' or 'commonplaces of philosophic thought'.

(1) Among the latter he reckons his constant use of purpose and teleology, seeing that the 'categories' of end and purpose go back to Plato, Aristotle and Leibniz, all of whom he regards as absolutists.

Now I am quite willing to believe that historically these categories entered Prof. Taylor's mind from the study of Plato and Aristotle, and that he is indebted for their application to Profs. Ward and Royce. But this explanation hardly seems logically sufficient seeing that (1) much prominence has been given to the definition of pragmatism as 'a thorough-going recognition of the influence of the purposiveness of thought on all our cognitive activities'; (2) that this was emphasised just because current absolutism has tried to ignore a feature so inconvenient to itself; and (3) that he had himself been expressly challenged to show how an Absolute could have a purpose. Or can it really be that Prof. Taylor has not yet become aware that there is a difficulty here, a difficulty, that is, in conceiving an Absolute, which is really absolute, i.e. a Whole which is complete, possessed by a purpose of completing itself?

I hope therefore it will not be thought churlish of me to say that what was wanted was not an account of whence Prof. Taylor took his ideas on the matter, but a proof of their logical congruity with his absolutism. And no appeal to Messrs. Ward and Royce (and still less to the ancients) avails him here. Indeed it seems