Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/488

 ILLUSORY PSYCHOLOGY. 487 the term having been so far accepted argumenti gratid only. Not that my objections will be limited to the question of nomenclature, although even this will involve some con- sideration of the true relations between philosophy and psy- chology. They will be directed also to establish that, so far from psychology being shown to be philosophic method, no method at all, psychological or other, is here exhibited. What we have here is merely a reiteration of the sort of results to be expected from pursuing that kind of psychology which Mr. Dewey advocates. Mr. Dewey begins by identifying the " English develop- ment in philosophy " with " the psychological movement since Locke," and of this he tells us, that it is " the ulti- mate science of reality, because it declares what experience in its totality is ; it fixes the worth and meaning of its various elements by showing their development and place within the whole. It is, in short, philosophic method " (p. 153). His thesis, then, is briefly this, that psychology is the method of philosophy. I shall pass over his criticisms of his German or rather Germanising friends of the "transcendental" movement, with the results of which, he tells us, his "method "is in substantial agreement (p. 154) ; merely remarking that, except perhaps in the political field, I can imagine no more glaring instance of surrendering principles in fact, while still professing them in name, than this surrender of the principles of the experiential to those of the transcendental or a priori school. Let Mr. Dewey go over and welcome ! to the traii- scendentalist camp, let him go by all means if he is con- vinced that truth is on that side ; but let him not profess while he does so, that experiential principles carry him over, that he goes in obedience to that " experience " which has always been the distinction of the English school. Let him frankly own that he does so in deference to presuppositions which are d priori to experience. We have seen that the fact is so, in the former part of this paper. No alliance or compromise is possible in philosophy between the two principles of appealing to experience alone and appealing to experience plus presuppositions. Now Psychology in the true, and I think also the usual, sense of the word, which is not Mr. Dewey's, is really built upon experi- ence plus pre-suppositions, and a true Psychology upon true presuppositions, just as all the other positive and experi- ential sciences are. This is no derogation from their dignity, nor any impeachment of their validity. There is but one science which is built on experience alone pure and simple,