eans by which Harvard University, represented by one of
her professors of philosophy who openly claims to address the general
public in the name of his office and of her, proposes to realize the
lofty ideal of her President, and make herself the "philosophical
pioneer" for each new generation in the pursuit of truth? Is this the
welcome which she accords to serious, dignified, and not unscholarly
works, giving the results, however partially and imperfectly wrought
out, of patient and independent reflection for more than thirty years
on the highest problems of human life and thought? Is this the best
sympathy and encouragement she has to offer to her own sons when they
take up in earnest the task of helping her to realize her own ideal?
Is this the attitude in which she confronts the great questions of the
age, and the spirit which she aims to foster in her young men? I do
not believe it; but you alone, gentlemen, can give the authoritative
answer to such queries.

When civil service reformers plead the urgent necessity of political
reform, they are irrelevantly charged by the adherents of the spoils
system with being "hypocrites and pharisees." Precisely so, when I
plead the urgent necessity of philosophical reform, I am irrelevantly
charged by Dr. Royce, in effect, with being a false pretender, a
plagiarist, and an impostor. The charge is just as true in one case as
in the other. But, be the charge true or untrue, the attention of keen
and candid minds is not to be diverted by this perfectly transparent
device from the main point of reform.

What is this needed philosophical reform?

Briefly, _to substitute the scientific method for the idealistic
method in philosophy_, as the only possible means, in this critical
and sceptical age, of making ethics and religion so reasonable as to
command the continued allegiance of reasonable minds. Unphilosophized
science conceives the universe as nothing but a Machine-World; and in
this conception there is no room for any Ethical Ideal. Unscientific
philosophy conceives the universe as nothing but a Thought-World; and
in this conception there is no room for any Mechanical Real. On the
possibility of developing a scientific philosophy out of the
scientific method itself must depend at last the only possibility, for
reasonable men, of believing equally in the real principles of
mechanical science and in the ideal principles of ethical science.
To-day the greatest obstacle to such