Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/328

 NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 315 the application of the method to philosophy and psychology " (p. 83). If I had imagined this, I should never have taken pen in hand to reply to them. My conception of their purpose was almost identical with Prof. Dewey's present description of it (p. 88) : " The article in MIND No. 41 was written to show that psychology could not be even psychology, much, less philosophy, until the universal factor in consciousness was attended to. . . . The article in MIND No. 42 was written to show that transcenden- talism was incomplete till it recognised that the universal content can be realised only in an individual bearer." It was precisely against Prof. Dewey's attempt to show these things that I argued ; and of course in doing so I followed his articles as closely as I could, in order to bring out what seemed to me the writer's misconception, not of English Psychology only, but also of German Transcendentalism. Had I stated what I conceived his general purpose to be, and argued against the misconceptions I supposed it to contain, it might have been plausibly, though at the same time quite sincerely, replied, that I had set up a figure of straw to contend with. But now we see, on Prof. Dewey's own showing, what it was that he was aiming at. It was an alliance, or perhaps we may say an union, between English Psychological Philosophy and German Transcendentalism, in which the first was to supply the method, and the second " the universal factor" whatever that may mean. No doubt some very striking philosophy was anticipated as the result. Now this idea appeared to me to involve a radical misconception of the nature of both the suggested allies ; but to show this by examining what I might suppose to be Prof. Dewey's idea of their nature was not my business : it was enough for me to point out the misconceptions, confusions and self-contradictions involved throughout his pleading in favour of the alliance. I considered that, if the misconceptions were really there, they would inevitably show them- .selves in the pleading. I also thought that, in recommending Transcen- dentalism, he could hardly avoid making some of the assumptions commonly made by that which he recommended. This proved to be the case. But it was with the assumptions as made by the advocate, not as appearing in the system advocated, that I was primarily concerned. I will now state what I suppose the chief of these misconceptions to have been, repeating that it was they and the plea founded on them which alone induced me to criticise Prof. Dewey's articles at all. I should not have cared to do so, if my notion of his purpose had been what he supposes. But the idea of an alliance or union between English Psychological Philosophy and German Transcendentalism, on the ground that both were based solely and directly on conscious experience, and the representation of this principle as at once fundamental and common to both, though too much lost sight of in application, especially on the English side, seemed to me too mischievous to sound philosophy to be allowed to pass altogether without comment. In the first place, then, it is a great misconception to suppose, that English Philosophy when following psychological method is based solely and directly on an appeal to conscious experience. English Philosophy has always aimed at being so based, and this is the very thing which constitutes its characteristic merit. But English Philosophy, following psychological method, or, as Prof. Dewey thinks, "that way of looking at philosophical questions which is specifically English (and which, following the usual custom, I called psychological)," departs from this sound principle precisely at the point when the psychological method is adopted by it. Psychology alone, whether English or not, makes no claim to be founded directly and solely on experience, but on experience and hypothesis