Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/360

354 such as pride, nobility, the platonic dream of a world-builder, etc., more than those of the latter would.

For the pragmatist, then, no metaphysical hypothesis contains more truth than another. He who feels the need of one may choose it according to his purposes and his taste in ideas, but he should not greatly flatter himself that his hypothesis can be recognized as the most solid and certain, the best proven and demonstrated.

Pragmatism contains, therefore, no metaphysics, either open or implied. For it, the different theories of the world, properly understood, are but diverse ways of affirming the same commonplace facts, and their value consists solely in their form side, which may be more or less suggestive, more or less favorable to certain aims and preferences of our minds. For the pragmatist, metaphysical theories are facts amongst other facts, and for him the thing that matters is the power of foreseeing the varieties of behavior of the different men who believe in those theories.

From what I have said, it will perhaps seem clear that pragmatism is really less a philosophy than a method of doing without philosophy. On the one hand, by striving against problems devoid of sense, such as metaphysics, monism and the like, it diminishes the field of action of that which, historically speaking, is called philosophy; and, on the other hand, by inciting men to act more than to talk, to alter things rather than to contemplate them, to force things actually to exist in a definite way, instead of asserting that they already do so exist, it enlarges the field of action at the expense of pure speculation. Pragmatism would seem to be, then, not only something different from philosophy, but even hostile to metaphysics taken in the traditional cosmological sense.

And the differences do not end here. Another equally important distinction is the pluralistic character of pragmatic theories, in contrast with the unity and formal organization of systems created or elaborated by one single mind. A great many do not yet perceive that there is no such thing as pragmatism, but that there are only pragmatic theories, and thinkers who are more or less pragmatic. Let it be understood that among the theories of these thinkers there are affinities and points of contact among their tendencies, otherwise the common adjective would not be justified. But that does not do away with the fact that pragmatism is a coalition of theories coming from various sources and temperaments rather than a handsome system sprung from the brain of a single philosopher, or from a homogeneous and well-organized school. If you compare its somewhat chance formation, to which so many men and countries have contributed with rational and well-constructed bodies of thought, such as determinism in the works of Spinoza, absolute idealism in those of Hegel, evolution in those of Spencer, the difference is most plainly evident.