Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/579

Rh hostile critics who have emphasized these points to the exclusion of any real merits which the movement may possess.

We all remember what Emerson said long ago about ideas announcing truth being in the air, seeking to gain entrance to different minds in different parts of the world at the same time, and "the most impressionable brain will announce it first, but all will announce it a few minutes later." But it is not to be expected that all minds will be impressed in the same way or to a like degree, or that all would have equal power of utterance. So we are further told by Professor James:

Before the movement was fairly launched, or an opportunity had been afforded its leaders of getting together and comparing notes as to their common message and unifying it, if possible, the critics had attacked it on all sides and from every quarter. This caused a rush of both friends and foes, professionals and tender feet, to this newly discovered philosophical Klondike, which has been productive of much confusion and misunderstanding. Reconciling these conflicting statements is simply out of the question, and I shall not attempt the impossible.

Disclaiming right at the outset all intention of speaking as one clothed with authority, fully realizing that what I may say is binding upon no one, my mission is simply to set forth what pragmatism is, as I understand it. Even this I venture upon with diffidence. As an excuse for my seeming rashness, if such be needed, I would repeat what the protagonist of pragmatism himself has said:

My purpose, however, is not to add another to the many existing definitions, but rather to weigh and compare some of those already current. In other words, I merely propose to examine the history of the movement with the intention of ascertaining, if possible, what pragmatism is, and I shall throw this layman's contribution into

It is easy enough to tell of the origin of the word and that it is "derived from the same Greek word πράγμα meaning action, from which our words 'practise' and 'practical' come." Now this not only does not tell us much, but has actually proved misleading and is