rdinary not to be
quoted here in full:--

"And so, finally, after this somewhat detailed study of Dr. Abbot's
little book, I feel constrained to repeat my judgment as above.
Results in philosophy are one thing; a careful way of thinking is
another. Babes and sucklings often get very magnificent results. It is
not the office of philosophy to outdo the babes and sucklings at their
own business of receiving revelations. It is the office of philosophy
to undertake a serious scrutiny of the presuppositions of human
belief. Hence the importance of the careful way of thinking in
philosophy. But Dr. Abbot's way is not careful, is not novel, and,
when thus set forth to the people as new and bold and American, it is
likely to do precisely as much harm to careful inquiry as it gets
influence over immature or imperfectly trained minds. I venture,
therefore, to speak plainly, by way of a professional warning to the
liberal-minded public concerning Dr. Abbot's philosophical
pretensions. And my warning takes the form of saying that, if people
are to think in this confused way, unconsciously borrowing from a
great speculator like Hegel, and then depriving the borrowed
conception of the peculiar subtlety of statement that made it useful
in its place,--and if we readers are for our part to accept such
scholasticism as is found in Dr. Abbot's concluding sections as at all
resembling philosophy,--then it were far better for the world that no
reflective thinking whatever should be done. If we can't improve on
what God has already put into the mouth of the babes and sucklings,
let us at all events make some other use of our wisdom and prudence
than in setting forth the American theory of what has been in large
part hidden from us."

Gentlemen, I deny sweepingly the whole groundwork of cunning and
amazing misrepresentation on which this unparalleled tirade is
founded.

I. I deny that my philosophy is "essentially idealistic," or that any
"careful" or conscientious scholar could possibly affirm it to be
such.

II. I deny that I "borrowed" my realistic theory of universals from
the idealist, Hegel, whether consciously or unconsciously. The charge
is unspeakably silly. Realism and idealism contradict each other more
absolutely than protectionism and free-trade.

III. I deny that I ever made the "philosophical pretensions" which Dr.
Royce calumniously imputes to me. But, if I had made pretensions as
high as the Himalayas, I deny his autho