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TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES. 89 friends of postulation ought to be most apparent. For it is a characteristic contention of my book that metaphysics at least con- tains axioms which are logically distinguished from practical postu- lates of every kind by their character of self-evident truth. To give the ' Pragmatist ' an opening I will go even further than this. I maintain that, setting all questions of metaphysics and its legiti- macy entirely aside, there is in existence at least one undisputably genuine science, viz., Arithmetic, which contains no postulates whatsoever. At least if it is contended that there are in Arithmetic somewhere genuine postulates, i.e. principles " which cannot be logically justified " but are " made because of their practical value and depend for confirmation on the success with which they can be applied," I desire, to borrow the phrase of Hume, " that they may be pointed out". Until they are pointed out, I shall be in good company including that of the great David himself, in regard- ing the doctrine that all truth is in the end postulatory as refuted by the mere fact of the existence of a science of number. 1 (4) Mr. Schiller traces a still more far-reaching indebtedness to his friends in two sentences of mine,' 2 in one of which thought is incidentally spoken of as an instrument, an expression which apparently reminds him of similar phraseology employed by certain American pragmatists, while in the other the intellect is referred to as au " intermediary between a lower and a higher level of im- mediate apprehension ". The connexion of this later passage in Mr. Schiller's mind with Pragmatism is a mystery which I have not yet unravelled. Now reference to the context of the first passage 3 shows at once that the writer has ignored its point. The remark about the futil- ity of studying the instrument apart from its work was given merely as an objection to the attempt to study the knowing faculty apart from the actual contents of knowledge. Nothing was said as to whether the study of the contents of knowledge themselves would reveal the presence of a priori principles, and the approval ex- pressed by Mr. Schiller for the empiricism which he reads iuto the passage is consequently undeserved. As to the more specially pragmatist developments of the " instru- mental " conception of thought, I can only say that they were not 1 1 take this opportunity of stating that the last passage from my book quoted by Mr. Schiller on p. 353 of his article (in the text) the reference by the way should be p. 200, not 230 contains an implied admission of the Kantian antinomies of space and time to which I should not at present wish to adhere. The whole section of my book there referred to is vitiated by certain vestiges of the traditional Aristotelian objection to the actual infinite, and its statements consequently should be received with the gravest distrust. The recent invalidating of the antinomies however is a point in favour of the rationalist against the modern Pro- tagoreans of ' Humanism '. J Lnc cit., p. 354. a Of course it must be understood that Mr. Schiller has carefully sup- plied the necessary references.