SIX MAJOR PROPHETS
and Bergson in the Alps. Poincaré I unearthed in a Paris flat, James I heard in a Columbia lecture room; Ostwald I found in a Saxon village; Schiller I caught in an Oxford quad. I was thinking of going to China to see Wang Yang-ming, but fortunately before I had bought my steamer ticket or learned Chinese I discovered that he had been dead for three centuries.[1]
Some who have read or tried to read what I said about Bergson and Poincaré[2] have complained that I used too many big words, and one man wrote me to say that if I would define pragmatism in words of one syllable perhaps he might understand what I was talking about. I could not guarantee that, of course, but I had no hesitation about complying with his request. Confucius wrote his immortal works in words of one syllable, and I would not be beaten by a Chinaman. Even Herbert Spencer once condescended to translate his famous definition of evolution into Anglo-Saxon. Since I am obliged to use the word "pragmatism" more than once in this book I may forestall criticism by putting here my
- ↑ The Philosophy of Wang Yang-ming is now accessible in English, through the translation of Doctor Henke (Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, 1916).
- ↑ "Major Prophets of To-day," First Series, 1914. Little, Brown, and Company, Boston.
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