Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/402

 388 F. C. S. SCHILLER : The notion therefore that Berkeleianism makes no practical difference is Prof. Taylor's, and is no doubt what has helped him to the conclusion that Berkeleianism is false and open to a ' formal logical disproof. That this should be so would of course be unfortunate for ah 1 the theories that make use of Berkeley's proof of idealism (including apparently Prof. Taylor's own x ) ; but eveni so the illustration gets into difficulties. For if the Berkeleianisnn which coincides with ' empirical realism ' is a ' demonstrable con- tradiction,' are we to understand that the latter is a 'proved truth ' ? If so, what becomes of Prof. Taylor's own idealism ? If not, what does it profit his point to find that sundry errors have practically indistinguishable consequences ? Had he not to show that of two such assertions the one may be proved true and the- other erroneous ? I must conclude therefore that Prof. Taylor has nowhere made out his allegation that of two propositions which are practically,. I.e. for every purpose, the same, the one may be a useless truth and the other a harmless falsehood. The challenge therefore to- our critics (which concluded my last article in N.S., 58, p. 175) to confute Pragmatism and have done with it, by producing an indisputable case of useless knowledge, still stands. Prof. Taylor's ' illustrations,' so far from meeting it, have only exhibited our woeful failure (up to date) to impress on him a clear apprehension of the pragmatic test of truth. And yet Prof. Taylor had distin- guished himself by the extent to which he has written about and studied this very matter ! Who after this will dare to affirm that the human mind is unbiased by emotion and offers an unobstructed passage to the entry of pure truth ? Prof. Taylor proceeds further to catechise me as to vhat 'having consequences' may mean (p. 84), and asks: "do you mean logical consequences, assertions which are implied by the truth in question and ought to be recognised as following from it, whether they happen to have been actually drawn or not ? Or do you mean actual effects ... or both these different things at once? " I have quoted this passage at length because it beautifully exemplifies the false antithesis to which its false abstractions conduct the logic of intellectualism. ' Logical consequences ' cannot be separated from psychological effects in the way supposed ; they are always first of all psychological effects, and it is only when they are there that their logical value can be estimated. No truth therefore has logical consequences in abstracto : they come into being only when some one has psychologically drawn them. By saying that they follow ' logically ' we only affirm our belief that all ' reasonable ' human minds would consent to draw them ; by saying that they existed ' potentially ' before we drew them, we 1 Cp. Ele. of Met., pp. 64-66, where, in spite of his protestations, Prof. Taylor never logically gets off subjective ground.