can emerge only by finding a way of
discriminating a 'truth' from an 'error,' and so solving the 'problem of
Truth and Error.' The weird verbalism of the traditional Logic suggests
a problem which strikes deeper even than the question, 'What _do_ you
mean by truth?' viz.: 'Do you mean anything?' and so the 'problem of
Meaning' is propounded by the failure of Formal Logic. Is Logic not
concerned at all with _meaning_, is it only juggling with empty forms of
words? Lastly, if from all this there springs up a conviction of 'The
Bankruptcy of Intellectualism,' the question suggests itself whether the
relation between abstract thinking and concrete experience, between
'Thought' and 'Life,' has been rightly grasped. Is life worth living
only for the sake of philosophic contemplation, or is thinking only
worth doing to aid us in the struggle for life? Are 'theory' and
'practice' two separate kingdoms with rigid frontiers, strictly guarded,
or does it appear that theories which cannot be applied have, in the
end, neither worth, nor truth, nor even meaning?

It is plain from this catalogue of inquiries that Pragmatism makes no
abrupt breach in tradition. It is not the _petroleuse_ of philosophy. It
does not wipe out the history of speculation in order to announce a
millennium of new ideas; it claims, on the contrary, to be the
culmination and _denoument_ of that history. It cannot rightly be
represented as trying either to sell new lamps for old, or to
jerry-build a new metaphysical system on the ruins of all previous
achievements. Its real task is singularly modest. It aims merely at
instructing system-builders in the elementary laws which condition the
stability of such structures and conduce to their conservation.

It is therefore a grave mistake to regard it as a parochial
eccentricity, as a specific Americanism. Nor is it the product of the
misplaced ingenuity of individual paradox-mongers. It has come into
being by the _convergence_ of distinct lines of thought pursued in
different countries by different thinkers.

1. One of the most interesting of these has originated in the scientific
world. The immense growth of scientific knowledge during the last
century was bound to react on human conceptions of scientific procedure.
The enormous number of new facts brought to light by manipulating
hypotheses could not but modify our view of scientific law. Laws no
longer seem to scientists the immutable foundations of an eternal