Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/259

Charles S. Peirce 241 end bases his spiritualistic metaphysics on epistemol6gy quite in the Kantian fashion. A leader in the introduction of modem ; physiologic psychology into this country, Ladd stands for a phi- | losophy that criticizes the procedures and fundamental ideas of * the special sciences. But his primary interest in philosophy is to make better Christian citizens. His idealism is a branch of ' modem Christian apologetics, justifying the ways of God and ; defending the church and the established moral and social order. Its most distinguished and also its most influential leader j| the idealistic school found in Josiah Royce at Harvard. To ' understand his development, however, we must first take some note of Charles S. Peirce. ^^ If philosophic eminence were measured not by the number of finished treatises of dignified length but by the extent to which a man brought forth new and fruitful ideas of radical importance, then Charles S. Peirce (1840-1914) would easily be the greatest figure in American philosophy. Unrivalled in his wide and thorough knowledge of the methods and history of the exact sciences (logic, mathematics, and physics), he was also 1 endowed with the bountiful but capricious originality of genius. Few are the genuine contributions of America to philosophy of | which the germinal idea is not to be found in some of his stray papers. Peirce was too restless a pioneer or explorer to be able to settle down and imitate the great masters who build complete systems like stately palaces towering to the moon. He was rather of those who are always trying to penetrate the jungle that surrounds our patch of cultivated science; and his writ- j ings are all rough, cryptic sketches of new fields, without much '; regard to the limitations of the human understanding, so that I James found his lectures on pragmatism "flashes of brilliant ; light against Cimmerian darkness. " Overt departure from the I conventional moral code and inability to work in hamess made I it impossible for Peirce to keep any permanent academic posi- i tion, and thus he was deprived of a needed incentive to intelli- gibility and to ordinary consistency. Intellectual pioneers are a rarely gregarious creatures. In their isolation they lose touch { with those who follow the beaten paths, and when they return ' to the community they speak strangely of strange sights, so VOL. Ill — i6