Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/450

 436 W. CALDWELL : incompetent to explain all phenomena," 1 i.e., that (in the language of Kant as rightly explained by Schopenhauer and Deussen and others) the mere intellect always leaves us with the shadow of the thing-in-itself. It is my opinion that in this so-called Pragmatism or Practicalism of Prof. James, despite the contempt that has been poured upon it by rationalistic metaphysic, we may find elements of fact and truth that with the help of a few assumptions ma)' be generalised into important philosophical truth truth not only about the relation of reason to will but about the relation of thought to reality. I am aware of the various epithets by which Prof. James's " new ethical philosophy " and that of his intellec- tual associates have been stigmatised, such as Irrationalism, Romanticism, Disguised Scepticism, the Philosophy of Re- action or of Dogmatic Theology, the Philosophy of Authority or of Caprice, Dynamism, Voluntarism, or what not. The justification for some of these terms of reproach is perhaps more apparent in the case of Prof. James than of Prof. Andrew Seth or of Mr. Arthur Balfour, or of A. Fouillee or of Deussen and Eucken and Simmel 2 and others, and it is particularly fortunate for the purposes of our dis- cussion that he should have employed such a blankly utilitarian and flatly commonplace word as Pragmatism to describe his philosophy. Philosophy, it would certainly seem, must be more than Practicalism or Pragmatism the selection of theories of the universe that enable us to act hopefully and to be better men, although there have always been philosophers like Socrates and Fichte who could not altogether dissociate, in their thinking, philosophy and good citizenship. To be sure, students of philosophy know that all definitions of philosophy and its purposes have their justification : they all may be true under certain presuppositions. And Prof. James is one of the men who know so much about philosophy and its effects upon the human mind that anything he may choose to say about its purpose will be true if we only remember what he means by it. Our discussion however will not be solely devoted to the threading of our way through various more or less tentative descriptions of the purpose of phi- 1 Appearance a)id Reality, p. 484. 2 For Simmel see below. Deussen (like Miinsterberg of Harvard) is a follower of Schopenhauer in the true sense, in believing that real it u in "things " and in " persons" is to be found in the will. Eucken's well- known ethicalism or humanism warrants us in associating him with James and Pringle-Pattison and Balfour.