e also to the extravagant pretensions which he frequently
makes of late as to the originality and profundity of his still
unpublished system of philosophy, to give the reader some hint of what
so far appears to be the nature of our author's contributions to
philosophical reflection."

Precisely what have been these alleged "pretensions"? Dr. Royce cites
only three instances.

I. He first garbles a sentence in the prefatory Note to "The Way out
of Agnosticism," by quoting only one phrase from it. The sentence in
full is this: "By a wholly new line of reasoning, drawn exclusively
from those sources [science and philosophy], this book aims to show
that, in order to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism,
nothing is now necessary but to philosophize that very scientific
method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and misuses."
There is no "pretension" whatever in these words, except that the
general "line of reasoning" set forth in the book is, _as a whole_,
different from that of other books. If not, why publish it? Or,
without the same cause, why publish any book? I see no reason to
recall or to modify this perfectly true statement; Dr. Royce, at
least, has shown none. The "novelty" of the book lies in its very
attempt to evolve philosophy as a whole out of the scientific method
itself, as "observation, hypothesis, and experimental verification,"
by developing the theory of universals which is implicit in that
purely experiential method; and Dr. Royce does not even try to prove
that Hegel, or anybody else, has ever made just such an attempt as
that. Unless there can be shown somewhere a _parallel attempt_, the
statement is as undeniably true as it is certainly unpretentious.

II. Next, Dr. Royce extracts these sentences from the body of the book
(I supply in brackets words which he omitted): "The first great task
of philosophy is to lay deep and solid foundations for the expansion
[and ideal perfection] of human knowledge in a bold, new, and true
theory of universals. For so-called modern philosophy rests
complacently in a theory of universals which is thoroughly mediaeval or
antiquated." What personal pretension, even of the mildest sort, can
be conceived to lurk in these innocent words? I did not say that I
have succeeded in performing that "task"; I repeat now what I have
often said and what I meant then; namely, that modern science has
unawares performed it already, that I have faithfully tried