Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/467

PRAGMATISM. tion of a body, etc.," as Spinoza and Aristotle, respectively, saw), for I observe in my body the operation of all physical and chemical and vital processes, and I experience in my conscious action that reintegration and redistribution of physi- cal force by moral force which in its higher and its collective forms ("civilisation," "religion," "art,") is literally the spiritualisation of the entire universe. It is thus indeed the most natural thing in the world to study theories in the light of their consequences for the simple reason that /row the very nature of reality no theory about the real can be anything else than a statement about certain tendencies, certain successions, antecedents and consequents, certain actions and reactions, certain modes of the manifestation of the force or life or will that is in nature and in history. There can ceteris paribus ' be nothing illogical in the tendency to estimate hypotheses by their practical consequences, for the world of reality consists of nothing but happenings and sequences and the manifestations of the struggle for life and the motived or purposeful actions that constitute the moral order. 2 'I.e., The other desiderata about a criterion of consequences or the Idea of the Good, referred to above, being granted. - Of course, as I have indicated, this ontology, this view of reality rests upon (1) the metaphysic of Transcendental Idealism (Kantism) which has as matter of fact reduced the world of " external " reality to (a) phenomenon, idea (sensible idea), representation ( Vorstellttng) that which is presented (in consequence of the activity of the understanding) to the mind as sensible, intelligible, related, etc., etc., and (j3) manifesting activity, will (force, energy in the broad and in the real sense). (To say that the world consists of Will and Idea expresses the ultimate truth and reality of the position of physical science that the world consists of energy and matter and at the same time the truth and reality of the position of philosophy that the world consists of Reality and Appearance. Reality means in the last resort will ; just as appearance means idea (in Locke's sense) or phenomenon.) But I here put forward this result of Critical Idealism as only the last step in the cumulative arguinent (about reality) that is (in my opinion) afforded us by the positions of Prof. James when taken along with the logical and psychological and scientific considera- tions to which I have referred. Only if we take this last step can Prag- matism become not only a true theory of reality, but also a true support to that revival of the anthro-pocentric point of view about the world to which the metaphysic of the present seems (in many quarters and in many ways) to be returning. As it [^philosophy] defends the truth "/ teleology in spitf of former abuses of tlte principle, so it ha now to champion the truth underlying the old view which made inan the centre of the universe. . . . Much current thought is naturalistic at heart that is to say, it makes human nature only a part of nature in general, and seeks therefore to explain away the most fundamental characteristics of intelligence and moral life. As against this naturalistic tendency philosophy must be unflinchingly humanistic, anthropocentric." Prof. A. Seth, Man't Place in the Cosmos, pp. 60-61.