tering as little as possible the old." You may talk of Absolutes as
much as you like, you may contemplate the fundamental categories of
the mind, you may dwell upon the _a priori_ conceptions to which all
our experiences must conform, but the fact remains, says Professor
James, turning his back on all transcendental idealism, "the concrete
truth _for us_ will always be that way of thinking in which our
various experiences most profitably combine."

The true is the opposite of whatever is instable, of whatever is
practically disappointing, of whatever is useless, of whatever
is lying and unreliable, of whatever is unverifiable and
unsupported, of whatever is inconsistent and contradictory, of
whatever is artificial and eccentric, of whatever is unreal in
the sense of being of no practical account. Here are pragmatic
reasons with a vengeance why we should turn to truth--truth
saves us from a world of that complexion. What wonder that its
very name awakens loyal feeling! In particular what wonder that
all little provisional fools' paradises of belief should appear
contemptible in comparison with its bare pursuit! When
Absolutists reject humanism because they feel it to be untrue,
that means that the whole habit of their mental needs is wedded
already to a different view of reality, in comparison with which
the humanistic world seems but the whim of a few irresponsible
youths. Their own subjective apperceiving mass is what speaks
here in the name of the eternal natures and bids them reject our
humanism--as they apprehend it. Just so with us humanists, when
we condemn all noble, clean-cut, fixed, eternal, rational,
temple-like systems of philosophy.

I am not here seeking to examine closely, still less to criticise,
Professor James' pragmatic doctrines. What I am concerned to show is
that we have in him a trained philosopher adopting towards the theory
of knowledge a point of view strangely similar to that which Mr.
Galsworthy takes up towards the social ethics of modern England. Is it
not Mr. Galsworthy's function to "condemn all noble, clean-cut, fixed,
eternal, rational, temple-like systems" of morality and etiquette?
Professor James' rationalist antagonists are exactly like the
administrators of law and order criticised by Sweedle in the play:
"They've forgot what human nature's like." Just as your Hegelian
wishes for nothing but the perfec