A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in PhilosophyJames, William
Philosophy
A Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy
James, William
Philosophy, Modern
Compromise and mediation are inseparable from the pluralistic
philosophy. Only monistic dogmatism can say of any of its hypotheses,
'It is either that or nothing; take it or leave it just as it stands.'
The type of monism prevalent at Oxford has kept this steep and brittle
attitude, partly through the proverbial academic preference for thin
and elegant logical solutions, partly from a mistaken notion that the
only solidly grounded basis for religion was along those lines. If
Oxford men could be ignorant of anything, it might almost seem that
they had remained ignorant of the great empirical movement towards
a pluralistic panpsychic view of the universe, into which our own
generation has been drawn, and which threatens to short-circuit their
methods entirely and become their religious rival unless they are
willing to make themselves its allies. Yet, wedded as they seem to
be to the logical machinery and technical apparatus of absolutism,
I cannot but believe that their fidelity to the religious ideal in
general is deeper still. Especially do I find it hard to believe that
the more clerical adherents of the school would hold so fast to its
particular machinery if only they could be made to think that religion
could be secured in some other way. Let empiricism once become
associated with religion, as hitherto, through some strange
misunderstanding, it has been associated with irreligion, and I
believe that a new era of religion as well as of philosophy will be
ready to begin. That great awakening of a new popular interest in
philosophy, which is so striking a phenomenon at the present day in
all countries, is undoubtedly due in part to religious demands. As
the authority of past tradition tends more and more to crumble, men
naturally turn a wistful ear to the authority of reason or to the
evidence of present fact. They will assuredly not be disappointed if
they open their minds to what the thicker and more radical empiricism
has to say. I fully believe that such an empiricism is a more natural
ally than dialectics ever were, or can be, of the religious life. It
is true that superstitions and wild-growing over-beliefs of all
sorts will undoubtedly begin to abound if the notion of higher
consciousnesses enveloping ours, of fechnerian earth-souls and the
like, grows orthodox and fashionable; still more will they superabound
if science ever puts her approving stamp on the phenomena of which
Frederic Myers so earnestly advocated the scientific recognition, the
phenomena of psychic research so-called--and I myself firmly believe
that most of these phenomena are rooted in reality. But ought one
seriously to allow such a timid consideration as that to deter one
from following the evident path of greatest religious promise? Since
when, in this mixed world, was any good thing given us in purest
outline and isolation? One of the chief characteristics of life is
life's redundancy. The sole condition of our having anything, no
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