CONCLUDING CHAPTER.

§ 425. By a 'higher synthesis,' I understand, a synthesis in which antitheses are reconciled by means of distinctions which, while eliminating that which is false in the differences, retain what is true and reunite it in a truth that is higher because it is fuller and more significant. And at the outset of this essay in cognition, I boldly ventured to claim that Realism, if properly understood, is a higher synthesis of Absolutism and Pragmatism. It now remains for me to resume the chief points which I have endeavoured to make in this somewhat lengthy discussion, and to show that my main contention is valid.

The Critical Philosophy of Kant assumes as its first principle that in knowledge the object conforms to the mind, and this is the direct contradictory of the first principle of Aristotelian Realism. Absolutism and Pragmatism may be regarded as differences of Kantian Criticism; not that they do not contain many ideas that are new, nor yet that they are opposed on every point; but that in general they are antitheses of which the fundamental principles were enunciated more or less clearly by the author of the Critiques of Reason and Judgment. Both retain the fundamental assumption of the Copernican revolution, and both attribute knowledge, and to some extent reality, to the constructive activity of mind; but the 'forms' which in knowledge are imposed upon the receptivity of matter are in Absolutism constitutive principles arising from the nature of thought as such, while in Pragmatism they are practical forms expressive of human needs and directive of human actions. Both seek to re-establish metaphysics on a sounder basis, but while Absolutism seeks that basis in the doctrines of the first Critique -- Apriorism and Immanence, Pragmatism seeks it in the second Critique, in postulation and the experimental activity by which we seek to realise our postulates in the concrete and so to satisfy our needs. The standpoiut of Absolutism is theoretical: it emphasises the functions of the intellect against Sensationalism. The standpoint of Pragmatism is empirical and practical: it emphasises the function of the will against Intellectualism. Consequently, Absolutism tends to Monism, while Pragmatism has a pronounced metaphysical inclination toward Pluralism, and toward a philosophy of Pure Experience which shall ultimately resolve itself in Personal Idealism. Finally, Truth for the absolutist is an Ideal Whole, and its test is coherence while for the pragmatist it is utility, and its test is its practical consequences for man. What Kant says of Rational Psychology, the pragmatist applies to all knowledge. It is merely a

'salutary discipline,' and its manifest contradictions show that the nature of the self (and the nature of things) cannot be known by the speculative intellect, and thus we are prevented from giving ourselves up to a mystic spiritualism that has lost its hold of actual life. The refusal of reason to answer our curious questions as to a life beyond the present we ought to interpret as a hint to apply our self-knowledge to fruitful, practical ends and to turn away from fruitless and transcendant speculations.^{1}

Pragmatism, then, is the antithesis of Absolutism, for what the one asserts the other for the most part denies. Yet, although Absolutism and Pragmatism are differentiations of Criticism which have taken a diametrically opposite direction, both attempt to transcend the fundamental principle of the Kantian revolution and to reintroduce into knowledge, either from above or from below, some form of objective determination. In other words, both tend to return to a more realistic attitude in which the principle of Kant is practically denied. And it is, I maintain, only by following out this tendency that the absolutist and the pragmatist can hope to find an adequate solution of the problems of reality and of knowledge in which their differences, psychological, metaphysical and epistemological, may finally be reconciled.

§ 426. In Absolutism psychology is almost completely absorbed and overshadowed by metaphysics. Psychological questions are discussed for the most part only in so far as they seem to lend support to metaphysical theory. Hegel's Phenomenology and Dr. Joachim's Nature of Truth are in a sense psychological, genetic and human. So, too, is the standpoint adopted by Professor Bosanquet in his Logic; for his analysis of the functions of thought, and his theory of the development of the hypothetical and universal from the individual judgment, are based on a study of the human mind; chiefly, one would suppose, of his own. Nevertheless, the tendency of Absolutism is to regard knowledge from the Absolute and not from the human point of view; to treat of knowledge in general, and then to predicate it, not of a human, but of a supra-human intelligence, which manifests and realises itself in finite centres. Consequently, human knowledge is at bottom an illusion; its development is not real but apparent. The psychology of Absolutism does not reveal a dynamic process in time, but is rather a static analysis of what eternally is, into the organic differences of an underlying ground.

Pragmatism seeks to counteract the exaggerations of this static, lifeless Intellectualism by going to the other extreme. Nothing is; everything becomes. Knowledge is a process without presuppositions or grounds; and it is above all things an active, living, psychological, human process. There is nothing static about it ; nothing which has not had a history, and is still destined to have a history; nothing which did not begin as a postulate to some extent unverified and liable to change, and which must ever so remain. All knowledge is human knowledge; springing from human needs, expressing itself in human actions, leading to consequences the value of which depends upon their power to satisfy human needs. The pragmatist claims to have found as the result of his analysis of the process of human cognition, not a priori forms, but postulates and experiments. The postulatory or experimental theory of knowledge is a psychological theory. It does not enquire with the absolutist 'how knowledge is possible,' but rather what happens when we know or think that we know.

The psychological analyses upon which Pragmatism is based, however, are somewhat scanty and far from adequate; and to make up for this deficiency the pragmatist does in psychology what the absolutist does in metaphysics; he generalises categories beyond the limits within which they are applicable. Kant analysed experience and assumed that the categories he found there belonged to the subject; Fichte analysed self-consciousness, and assumed that in so doing he had discovered the structure of Reality: the pragmatist analyses cognition, and, finding that we sometimes postulate, assumes that we do so always and in every case. Absolutism overcomes the Subjectivism of Kant, by making the Eternal Ego the subject of all consciousness and by transferring to Him (or It) the a priori forms through which Reality is constructed. Humanism gets rid of the fallacy of attributing to the Absolute the processes of human cognition by making psychology once more a human science; but in so doing, it goes too far, and returns once more to a Subjectivism similar to Kant's, except that in place of a priori forms we now have human needs and purposes.

§ 427. The realist, on the other hand, is able to assign to psychology its due place in the theory of knowledge without finding himself impelled toward Subjectivism, and without having to invoke a psychology of the Absolute, of which he knows little or nothing, in order to save himself from it. His psychology is as human as that of the pragmatist. He grants that all thought is purposive, and tends to satisfy human needs; yet by restricting purpose to the intent of thought and regarding satisfaction as the consequence rather than as the essence of truth he is able to find room in knowledge for objective determination and real objective meaning. He grants that action is essential to knowledge, and that concepts are useful tools which help us in the manipulation of experience; but, on the other hand, he insists that action is subordinate to knowledge quâ knowledge, and that, though by action knowledge is acquired and in it is expressed, knowledge and action must not be confused or identified. And thus the realist, without reducing the intellect to a mere machine for the manufacture of useful symbols, can justly claim that knowledge is living, and, though he does not attribute it to the mere unaided intellect, can truly claim that it is real.

Again, to the pragmatist the realist concedes that axioms are useful as regulative principles and that they are derived from and may be applied in concrete experience, but he denies that axioms are merely regulative or merely useful, or that their truth depends upon their application. While to the absolutist he grants that axiomatic principles are constitutive of knowledge, and that their objective counterparts are constitutive of reality; but he refuses to identify knowledge and reality or to assign to axioms an a priori birth. Thus in Realism the necessity and objectivity of axioms is reconciled with their empirical origin, and their utility as practical norms is found to be compatible with, nay more, to depend upon, their objective significance. Again, the empirical origin which is assigned to all knowledge in Realism makes it possible for knowledge to have a real and not merely an apparent development, and at the same time allows full scope for experiment and for the constructive activity of thought; but since the realist acknowledges also the power of the intellect to apprehend to some extent the nature of real entities and the relations which in some cases hold of necessity between them, he is not forced to explain away self-evidence nor to invent mythical stories in order to explain how what is clearly not a postulate might possibly have been so in its origin.

§ 428. It is difficult to compare Pragmatism and Absolutism metaphysically for while Absolutism is essentially metaphysical, Pragmatism professes to be unattached; and the philosophy of Pure Experience with which it harmonises best, itself tends to disruption, leading us on either to Monism or to some form of Panpsychism or Personal Idealism. Pragmatism, however, like Absolutism, is idealistic in so far as it denies that the object of perception and thought is independent of and external to the mind in the realist's sense; but this does not seem to be essential to Pragmatism. And though the pragmatist is inclined to adopt the doctrine of Immanence, his philosophy does not stand or fall with that doctrine. Rather, it is an excrescence, a supplementary theory, a confession of ignorance as to the metaphysical relation which holds between mind and mind, between thought and reality. Yet on one point there is clearly a resemblance, viz., between Fichte's idea of a system of rational egos which eternally strive to realise themselves, and the Personal Idealism of those pragmatists who conceive the universe as an aggregate of rational, purposive minds, interacting one with another, and each striving to satisfy its needs by forcing a thoroughly plastic and formless matter to conform to its preconceived notions and hypotheses. The later philosophy of Fichte also suggests a comparison; for his Personal Idealism eventually gave place to an Absolutism which was more like a philosophy of Pure Experience than what we now understand by Absolutism. Compare, for instance Fichte's assertion that the Life of Knowledge is everything, that it alone exists, and exists of itself, requiring no subject in which to inhere, with the Radical Empiricism of Professor James in which substances and selves are done away and there is left only the cognitive process, the series of present thoughts or experiences which succeed one another and pass one into the other by continuous transitions, out of which are engendered in reflection both subject and object, thought and reality.

In spite of these similarities, however, Pragmatism as a theory of knowledge is radically different from and opposed to Absolutism. It denies that the universe is really one, and insists that both methodologically and epistemologically it must be regarded as plural. The universe for the pragmatist is not an organism, but rather a flat mosaic of which the parts, though inter-related, are yet distinct. And if he sometimes seems to identify reality with experience, he identifies it not with the experience of the Absolute, but with his own experience and with the experiences of other minds, human or incipiently human. Reality may be the product of mind, but it is the product not of a single all-embracing Mind, but of the combined activity of many minds, past, present, and in respect of future realities yet to be evolved. Facts, if they are immanent at all, are immanent within finite human experiences, and not within the experience of a self-sufficient and eternal consciousness. The pragmatist laughs at an Absolute which is a higher synthesis of God and the devil; and of all kinds of knowledge, that which he singles out as most useless, is the knowledge which Absolutism claims to give.

§ 429. The realist does not go so far as this in his opposition to Absolutism. He admits that both Absolutism and Pragmatism contain much that is true, and that of the two from a metaphysical standpoint Absolutism is more satisfactory since it is less ambiguous, more consistent and more complete. Nevertheless, he cannot accept Absolutism as it stands, for the assumptions upon which it is based seem to him wholly unfounded, and the conclusions to which it leads he finds to be incompatible with facts. The fundamental theses of Absolutism have no foundation in the data of experience, but on the contrary, contradict many such data, a contradiction which Absolutism is neither able to explain nor yet to explain away. All idealists affirm that we cannot think of objects except as experienced, nor continue to speak of a piece of existence from which all perception and feeling have been removed. And this statement, if rightly interpreted, is true; but if rightly interpreted, it does not lead to Idealism. For if by a 'piece of existence' is meant a corporeal thing, and by the 'removal of all perception and feeling,' that it is possible to know that thing otherwise than by means of sense-perception, then it is true that 'we cannot find any piece of existence of which we can still continue to speak when all perception and feeling have been removed, or any fragment of its matter, any aspect of its being, which is not derived from, and is not still relative to this source but it does not follow from this that an object does not exist independently of our perception of it or that we cannot think of it except as actually being perceived. Again, psychological introspection does not reveal those felt-wholes of which Mr. Bradley speaks and from which relational appearances are supposed not merely psychologically but really to emerge. What we perceive is a felt-whole, if by a felt-whole you mean that what is perceived is perceived all together and in a single act. But what we perceive is perceived neither as one nor yet as many until we think about it, and then it may become either one or many, and not until it has become either one or many do we regard it as revealing to us the nature of what we perceive. On the other hand, it is a datum of our experience that what we perceive is external, independent and material, and until the idealist can explain this he is not justified in treating as an illusion a belief which is both natural and universal and apparently has been so for all time.

Realism, then, has at any rate this advantage, that it is consistent with facts which Absolutism seems to deny. But I will go further than this, and will endeavour to show that as an explanation of the Universe Realism is more adequate and more consistent than Absolutism precisely in regard to those points where the demand of the human mind for an explanation is most urgent and peremptory. As, however, the metaphysics of Absolutism is so intimately bound up with its theory of relations, it is necessary first to sum up briefly the results of our previous discussion of this matter.

§ 430. Almost all philosophers now admit that relations are real. Even the empiricist has at length been forced to acknowledge this truth, though, being unable to explain how relations are real, he affirms that they are real because we feel them, which we certainly do not. Neither the absolutist nor the realist is content with so superficial a view. Both attempt to explain the nature of relations and the connection of relations with what they relate. But the absolutist, assuming that thought (or experience) and reality are one, prefers to treat the matter psychologically, since for him what is true of our knowledge of relations must be true of relations in rerum natura. The result is that he has given us two theories which are mutually contradictory; for while Green, observing that our knowledge of relations is often prior to our knowledge of the objects they relate, infers that objects are really subsequent to and dependent on their relations; Mr. Bradley, observing that our knowledge of relations is often simultaneous with our knowledge of their terms, infers that relations and their terms are interdependent and mutually presupposed one by the other. But the fact is that our knowledge of relations may be either prior to, or simultaneous with, or subsequent to our knowledge of the objects related; hence a psychological theory must inevitably lead to contradiction if applied to real relations. Moreover, common-sense invariably regards a relation as arising from and as dependent on its terms, irrespective of the order in which our knowledge of relations and objects has developed; and this fact the Absolutist neglects altogether, as he also neglects the fact that relations may be predicated as an attribute, and in most cases as a real attribute, of either of the objects related. The realist alone takes account of all these facts, for in his theory alone are relations regarded as entities belonging to individual objects and conditioned by qualities in those objects which have a real ordo in regard to other objects, an ordo which is implied in and is dependent upon the rational plan of the universe. The realist's theory is more adequate than that of the absolutist, and it is so because, as usual, where the absolutist makes general statements of somewhat vague import, the realist inserts a distinction, and so makes the statement at once more precise and more consistent with facts. Instead of affirming that relations and their terms are interdependent, he affirms that the terms give rise to the relations and the relations presuppose the terms; and instead of asserting that 'relations intrinsically modify their terms,' he asserts that real relations imply a modification in at least one of the objects they relate, and thus is able to avoid the somewhat absurd and decidedly sceptical conclusion that every little bit of additional knowledge we acquire involves an intrinsic modification of every particle of the knowledge we already possess.

§ 431. The absolute theory of relations accounts largely for the unmistakably pantheistic tone of many of the theses of Absolutism; while that ambiguity which characterises the conception of a relation as a something which somehow connects, and somehow intrinsically modifies, and somehow arises from and in and together with its terms, also characterises almost all the leading doctrines of the absolutist. And it is these mysterious 'somehows' which meet us at every turn and are not only unexplained but are declared to be inexplicable, that more than anything else arouses the anger and provokes the scorn of the pragmatist. Yet it is possible by the aid of distinctions to reinterpret these doctrines, almost without exception, in a realistic sense, and so not only to render them more precise and more compatible with facts and with common-sense, but also to rid them of that dangerous pantheistic character which seems to destroy that which is most valuable to man, his freedom and his personality. Thus it is true that

the unification of the manifold of the world (of human knowledge) implies the presence of the manifold to a (human) mind, for which and through the action of which it is a related whole^{2} (in the logical, but not in the real sense of that term). (And, again, it is true that) the unification of the manifold of the (real) world implies the presence of the manifold to a (divine) mind, for which, and through the action of which, it exists as a system of inter-related and inter-active beings, constructed according to a rational plan in which each being has its proper place.

It is true also that the universe is a logical whole and a teleological whole, but not that it is a real whole; and again that it implies a unity of Ground, and that a number of absolutely independent coexisting reals is impossible, but not that this unifying Ground is immanent, though the co-existing reals are present to It, and exist for It, and are sustained in their being by It. For the realist, each existing being is one and individual and has its own existence and its own nature, though it is wholly and essentially dependent upon the Divine Being for that existence and that nature, and may also in a different sense be dependent on another finite being for its existence and its nature, since it may have been by the action of that finite being as a secondary cause that it was brought into existence in time.

§ 432. Realism, it has been said, conceives God anthropomorphically; but in Absolutism the conception of the universe is more anthropomorphic still. The absolutist, finding that man is one, individual, organic, and that his thoughts and actions are immanent within him, applies this conception to the universe itself; but he forgets that human attributes can be predicable of God only in an analogous sense, and he forgets also that man's thoughts are not merely immanent, but refer to a something other and beyond, and that his actions are transient as well as immanent. Nor can it be said that the realist is guilty of a similar illicit use of a category when he says that God is the First Cause of the Universe; for he does not predicate causality of God in the same sense that he predicates it of finite agents. A finite cause cannot act without intrinsic modification, and is itself caused, being in fact but one among a series of causes, finite in power, extent and duration. God acts without intrinsic modification, is the Cause of all things without Himself being caused, and does not belong to the finite series of causes at all, but exists of Himself, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal.

The relation between God and the universe is a mystery, and creation does not fully explain it; but the difference between Absolutism and Realism in this respect is that while the former makes the relation between God and man a hopeless mystery and describes it in terms which, to say the least, sound pantheistic, the latter at any rate attempts to solve the mystery; and though recognising that the human mind is incapable of comprehending it and that human language is powerless adequately to express it, is careful not only to point out that terms are not used in the same sense when predicated of God and of His creatures, but also to indicate as clearly as is possible in what sense they are used. And thus by clear conception and a correspondingly precise use of language, he is able to save himself from even the imputation of Pantheism and at the same time to reconcile Monism with Pluralism. For Realism the universe is one and it is also many; and in a certain sense it is also one in many. It is one because it proceeds from and is sustained in its being by one divine Source; and it is many because it consists of many individuals really distinct and really having a nature of their own. It is also many in one, because God is 'immanent' within the universe, not anyhow nor yet in the same way that my thoughts are immanent within me, but "est in omnibus per potentiam, in quantum omnia ejus potestati subduntur; est per praesentiam in omnibus in quantum omnia nuda sunt et aperta oculis ejus; est in omnibus per essentiam, in quantum adest omnibus ut causa essendi."^{3}

§ 433. Realism does not destroy Absolutism by thus distinguishing within its vague but suggestive theses a sense in which they are true from a sense in which they are not. The reality of the Absolute Ground is still preserved, and so, too, is the reality of the process by which from that Ground finite beings proceed, and the reality of their dependence upon it. Finite beings are really 'differences' and 'appearances' of the Absolute, since they manifest in different ways, though always imperfectly, its attributes. But they are not mere appearances nor mere differences, nor do they proceed from that Ground by emanation. Finite beings, though essentially dependent upon the Divinity, are yet distinct, having each their own nature and finite contingent existence; while the Divinity itself, precisely because it is the Ground or Cause of all things, and yet is distinct, is not merely an abstract Ground, but a living Personality having in an infinite degree all that is manifested in the finite beings that are due to Its creative act.

So closely at times does Absolutism seem to approach to the metaphysic of Realism that the insertion or the omission of a few distinctions would be sufficient to change the one into the other. By Professor Mackenzie and in a certain sense by Hegel and even by Mr. Bradley, the real existence of the so-called 'material' world is granted. "The idealist," says Professor Mackenzie, "does not seek to rob anyone of his sun and planets, nor even of his cups and saucers. To say that something is more than what it seems is not to say that it is not what it seems."^{4} And, in truth, if it be granted that 'material' things are 'less real' than strictly spiritual beings, i.e., that they have the properties that we predicate of them physically, but have neither intelligence, will, nor sentience, even on this point there is not much difference between Realism and Objective Idealism, save that the realist objects to calling material things 'spiritual' on the ground that it is a misuse of terms. The realist holds with Kant "that what lies at the back of phenomena is the thing-in-itself which may not be heterogeneous." Indeed, he would go further, and say that if the thing-in-itself here means God, as it seems to do, it cannot be wholly heterogeneous, since if God has created the universe he must have created it like to Himself. And though the realist would not grant that the material world may be but another aspect of the Divinity, he would certainly acknowledge the existence of "a thinking being, the signs of whose thoughts in phenomena we can perceive."^{5}

Thus the difference between Realism and Absolutism in regard to metaphysics is not insuperable, and yet it is sufficient for Realism to be able to claim that it retains all that is of vital importance to the metaphysics of Pragmatism. The unity, the changelessness, and the absolute reality of the universe are realised in the Divine Being who is one, eternal, and who alone has reality a se. Yet real personality, real activity, and real development exist in the created universe of finite and contingent beings; and this is what the pragmatist demands. He demands, too, a 'world of plural facts;' and this also is to be found in Realism, though the realist's world of plural facts and plural beings is not a mosaic, but rather a system created and maintained in its being according to a definite and rational design which it manifests. Upon more than this the pragmatist does not insist and it is little use re-discussing or trying to reconcile the hopeless ambiguities and obvious discrepancies of an incomplete philosophy of Pure Experience.

§ 434. In regard to Truth there are many points upon which Realism may be said to reconcile the differences of Absolutism and Pragmatism. In the first place, almost all of what is positive in that which the pragmatist contends for may be granted. Truth is empirically determined, and yet is due in large measure to the activity of the human mind. It is not static; it develops; and in its development postulation, experiment and purposive selection each play a part. And truth, when 'made', is regulative of human actions, leads to useful consequences and satisfies human needs. All this may be granted as psychological fact; but in granting it we must make certain reservations. Truth in the process of 'making' is not a passive 'mirroring' of fact, but truth, when made, does correspond with and reveal the nature of reality. Postulation and purposive selection are of the greatest importance in the acquisition of truth; but all truth is not obtained by postulation, nor does selection necessarily mutilate truth, or purpose modify its content. All truth is normative, useful and satisfactory; but it is not merely normative nor merely useful, nor is it determined as truth by its power of giving satisfaction.

The realist, finding himself in agreement with the pragmatist on so many points in regard to the characteristics and growth of human truth, must to some extent find himself at variance with the absolutist in so far as the latter denies and does not merely neglect these points. Thus he cannot admit that human truth is due to the immanence of the Absolute within our finite minds. Indeed, it is inconceivable that the Absolute should be thinking in us, since error is a fact and in it our thoughts go wrong. Nevertheless, Realism holds that human truth, in so far as it is truth, really manifests the thoughts of the Absolute as expressed in concrete facts, and really reveals in part that systematic and coherent Truth which the absolutist calls Ideal and the realist ontological, but which both grant to be at bottom identical with reality itself. The realist, again, maintains as firmly as the absolutist that the concepts by means of which we think have real meaning and are not mere symbols or norms, and that the relations which hold between these concepts at any rate correspond even if they are not identical with relations and laws that hold in the real world. Lastly, Cognition in Realism as in Absolutism is properly a function of the intellect to which in this matter other faculties are subordinate.

§ 435. Thus in Truth, as understood by Realism, are brought together the chief characteristics of both Absolute and pragmatic truth, but in regard to the criteria of truth and in regard to its approximate character the realist finds himself at variance with both. 'Useful consequences' and 'the satisfaction of needs' as such do not seem to him to be criteria of truth at all, but rather the result of truth already established. On the other hand, the necessity of application and verification in experience he grants; as also he grants the necessity of 'coherence.' But neither criterion for him is either universal or ultimate. The only criterion which at once possesses both these characteristics is that evidence which comes from the object, and which the mind, conscious that it has not been influenced by subjective conditions, has carefully examined, and so has come to recognise for what it is, a true manifestation of objective reality. The approximate nature of human truth is also granted, and not merely granted, but insisted upon by the realist; yet he also insists that this approximation does not destroy truth, and that to be approximate is quite a different thing from being subject to indefinite and intrinsic modification. Here he dissents from both absolutist and pragmatist. Convinced that knowledge is possible, he infers that the means or instruments by which knowledge is acquired, viz., the human faculties of cognition, must be veracious. Hence, when by a process of reasoning which, as Newman says, it is impossible completely to analyse or adequately to express in words, reason (or the 'Illative Sense') pronounces a proposition or a doctrine to be true, the realist prefers to accept this dictum of his intellect rather than fall into Scepticism.

§ 436. Pragmatist and absolutist, on the other hand, though the one derives the doctrine from his Postulatory theory of knowledge and the other from his Coherence-notion of Truth, both affirm that knowledge is liable to indefinite modifications and may become some day completely transformed. But in spite of Dr. Schiller's assertion to the contrary, it is Pragmatism and not Absolutism that is most infected by this Scepticism. The absolutist is an intellectualist, and an intellectualist can hardly be a sceptic. He may admit that human knowledge evolves; but he is not as a rule so fascinated by the idea of evolution that he must needs extend evolution to all truths, even to those which in denying we implicitly affirm, nor does he feel bound to reduce all knowledge to a process which could never have had a beginning and will never have an end. On the contrary, he has a metaphysic in which apparently he believes, and with his view of truth a 'Corridor-theory' is incompatible. Not so the pragmatist, as witness Le Roy and Papini. Le Roy exhorts us not to reject Aristotle and Aquinas any more than we reject Plato, Descartes or Kant. Each theory is to be taken as an experience of thought, a moment in its progressive life, in which the claim to rest there would engender immediately error, but in which the truth would appear, on the contrary, in its dynamic tendency.^{6} And Papini, too, has shown that the pragmatic method is consistent with any philosophy. By it theories and beliefs are rendered plastic, which, for the Florentine school, is equivalent to saying that we may believe what suits us best, and may change our beliefs according to our present needs. All that Pragmatism excludes is the useless and the verbal. It may be used to establish any metaphysic; and Professor James himself has offered it as a means of reconciling the religious demands of Rationalism with the empiricist's love of facts.

That such a reconciliation is desirable no one will deny. Indeed, it is somewhat similar to that which I myself have attempted. And a method so broad and so comprehensive as to embrace standpoints so thoroughly opposed would indeed be valuable, if it could effect the reconciliation without destroying the validity of knowledge and the objectivity of truth. But a pragmatic harmony can be brought about only by the sacrifice of these, and in effect is not a harmony at all. Pragmatism does not reconcile Rationalism with Empiricism it flatly denies that Rationalism has any ground to stand on, as Professor James himself has again and again assured us. Nor does it preserve that 'richest intimacy with facts,' which is acknowledged to be the aim of all genuine Empiricism. On the contrary, in order to maintain its theory of universal postulation, it is forced to ignore a fact which introspection reveals, viz., that knowledge is based on self-evident first principles, which cannot be explained away except by a violation of the fundamental law of teleological interpretation, that the lower must be explained by the higher and not the higher by the lower.

§ 437. A pragmatic reconciliation in fact, like Pragmatism itself, is based on ambiguity; and, if possible at all, is possible only because Pragmatism deliberately refuses to define its terms or to determine precisely the meaning of its statements. Pragmatism which began as a method for 'making our ideas clear,' has ended by offering us a theory of knowledge which is more ambiguous than any that ever existed before, so ambiguous, indeed, that its founder has renounced it and changed the name of his own more intelligible and more practical method to Pragmaticism. Truth in Pragmatism is said to 'happen' to an idea under certain circumstances, a statement which tells us nothing about the nature of truth, but leaves us in doubt as to whether it is or is not to be identified with utility. We are said to 'make' truth, which may mean either that ideas are the products of psychological processes or that truth has no objective counterpart. Finally, we are said to 'make' reality, where reality would ordinarily be interpreted as objective reality, but apparently may also signify knowledge. Nor is this ambiguity merely incidental to the pragmatic method. Its 'large, loose way of speaking' and of reasoning is one of its essential characteristics, M. Le Roy insists not only that what is clear is uninteresting, but that "raisonnements sourds, sans paroles ni divisions, sont les seuls féconds." No wonder, then, that Pragmatism can retain, not merely the aim, but more than half the cardinal principles of Kantian Criticism, its doctrines of Postulation and of Reconciliation in Synthesis, its theory of the Constructive Activity of Thought and its principle of Immanence, and yet despise the mind of its author as a 'bric-a-brac museum,' which has given to philosophy no idea of value that it did not already possess,^{7} and scornfully describe his most eminent successor as a philosopher who, "leaving to his disciples a glittering legacy of magniloquent but meaningless phrases, vanishes into thin air before he can be caught and questioned about the meaning of his enchantments."^{8}

§ 438. If we are to judge Pragmatism by the purpose which it claims as its ratio essendi, Pragmatism is a failure. So far from increasing the clearness of philosophic language and ideas, it has by its exaggerations increased the confusion already existing. So far from establishing metaphysics on a sounder and more scientific basis, it has not yet made up its mind what metaphysic is to be established. And instead of removing from human knowledge the taint of Scepticism, it has provided the sceptic with a further argument against its validity by informing him that our faculties were never meant to give us real knowledge, but only to lead to useful, practical results. Criticism as a method and Absolutism as a theory of reality are at any rate more capable of satisfying our needs than the useless norms and ambiguous dicta of the pragmatist. For Absolutism, despite its inconsistency, its vagueness, and its fondness for hypostatising psychological abstractions and converting logical notions into metaphysical realities, at any rate does not explain away knowledge, nor minimise the Intellect, nor destroy entirely our notions of truth, nor even glory in its own ambiguity. Moreover, it has a metaphysic to offer us which the pragmatist has not. Yet Pragmatism has its function in the economy of philosophic life and the development of philosophic thought. As the antithesis of Absolutism, it exaggerates precisely those characteristics of knowledge and reality which Absolutism neglects, and thus, by bringing us back to the human point of view, it saves us from falling into errors to which the Absolute position is liable, and at the same time emphasises truths which are of the greatest value to man and of the greatest importance both in the theoretical and in the practical affairs of human life.

§ 439. In Pragmatism and Absolutism Herr Simmel's doctrine of dual heuristic principles or standpoints is illustrated. But neither Absolutism nor Pragmatism nor any other philosophical antitheses are merely heuristic. They each have a certain objective validity and are capable of being united in a synthesis which shall reveal more fully the real nature of the Universe than either does if taken apart from the other. But in order thus to reconcile antitheses we must distinguish. To reconcile what is contradictory is impossible for contradictories as such are incompatible. Yet no philosophical antitheses are merely contradictory: they are also complementary. Each takes up a different point of view, and emphasises a different aspect of reality. And different aspects and different points of view are not necessarily either contradictory or incompatible. Hence by distinguishing the different senses which assertions on either side may bear, we may be able to bring about a reconciliation which shall be not a synthesis of contradictions -- for that is impossible -- but a synthesis of differences which are due to the different points of view from which, as human beings, we may regard the same eternal truths.

This is what I have attempted to do in regard to Absolutism and Pragmatism. I may have succeeded, or I may have failed; but, at any rate) I have shown that the fundamental theses of the two philosophies are retained in Realism with distinctions and reservations. The realist is fond of distinctions, and though this tendency may at times lead to a 'subtilitas affectata nimis et inutilis,' and to 'praecisiones mentales et varia alia mentis otiosa deliria,' it has its proper function in philosophy, and is necessary as a preliminary to any kind of 'higher' synthesis. By distinguishing matter from form the Aristotelian is able to maintain without contradiction the reality of both, and yet to explain matter as the imperfect manifestation and inadequate expression of mind. The distinction which he asserts between the faculties of the human mind enables him to avoid those fallacies which result from the identification of intellect with will, or will with intellect, or intellect with sense; and yet to retain the unity and integrity of man and the reality of human personality. While the distinction between God and the created Universe enables him to reconcile unity with plurality, necessity with contingency, the infinite with the finite; and yet to maintain that all alike are real. Lastly, his theory that in cognition the object determines the mind explains both the certainty of knowledge and the objectivity of truth, and at the same time is consistent with a teleological and genetic psychology, allows for the growth of knowledge, admits the constructive activity of thought, and acknowledges the limitations that are due to our human ways of knowing and to our human points of view.

§ 440. Realism, too, is consistent with facts and with the data of human experience. It is a philosophy which recognises the laws of common-sense as in the last analysis the source whence flows all certitude and truth. Science and philosophy are but the work of common-sense carried to greater perfection. The difference between the philosopher or the scientist and the man-in-the-street is chiefly one of degree. The intellectual activity of the former has attained a maximum; that of the latter is spasmodic, and in intensity and in concentration is comparatively feeble. But the thinking of both is based on experience and is governed by the same laws and subject to the same criteria. Philosophy, science and common-sense must stand or fall together. If we cannot trust the quasi-instinctive beliefs of the one, we cannot rely upon the more delicate and intricate reasonings of the other. If in the ordinary exercise of our faculties we may err in regard to fundamental truths, whose acceptance is universal, what guarantee have we that when applied to more difficult and more theoretical problems those same faculties are reliable? Either, then, common-sense deceives us, and in that case both philosophy and science are impossible, or the scientist and the philosopher should join with the man-in-the-street in adopting the standpoint of the realist. For common-sense belief in objective reality and in the existence of a world that is independent of the thinking self, arises spontaneously and naturally within the mind of each one of us, and has so arisen from time immemorial. If, then, common-sense has erred in this, the most universal and most natural of all its beliefs, neither scientific reasoning nor philosophical speculation can be regarded as reliable in any matter whatsoever. Our only alternative is Scepticism. We must declare all knowledge impossible, and the quest of it waste of time; we must pronounce the problems of life insoluble, and so must acknowledge that one of the most urgent needs of human nature is a source of illusion, a spring of action which will never he satisfied, a purposive striving that can never attain its end. But this conclusion is incompatible with the existence of such a need and destroys the very notion of a rational and intelligible universe.

§ 441. Whether, then, Realism is or is not a higher synthesis of Absolutism and Pragmatism, it is certain that Realism is the only philosophy which is self-consistent, and at the same time consistent with facts. And that it is possible seriously to offer Realism as a reconciliation of two positions so antagonistic as those of Pragmatism and Absolutism, is itself a proof that Realism is not a static theory, devoid of life, incapable of development, and always some hundreds of years behind the times. The philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas has developed and still contains the potentiality of future life. Latent within it are many ideas which yet remain to be broken up into differences and reunited in higher syntheses. If we take it as it was, we shall find that the principles which a critical regress on more modern positions will reveal, are there set forth; while if we take it as it is, it can still claim to be the only philosophy which can show "what are the universal conditions which must be satisfied by anything of which we can say that it is or that it happens."

{1} Kant, Werke, vol. iii., p. 694.

{2} Prolegomena to Ethics, § 82.

{3} Summa Theologica, 1. q. 8, a. 3.

{4} Mind, N.S. 59, p. 325.

{5} Werke, iii., p. 694.

{6} Revue de Philosophie, v. 19, 6, p. 419. Reprint from thc Matin, 15th June, 1906.

{7} James, Journ. of Phil., Psy. and Sc. Methods, 1904, p. 687.

{8} Schiller, Riddles of the Sphinx, p. 158.