The persistent popularity of Pluralism in many quarters is in fact due to the intrusion into Metaphysics of other than genuinely philosophical interests. It is maintained, not on its philosophical merits as a consistent theory, but because it is believed by its adherents to safeguard certain interests of morality and religion. It gives us, we are told, a “real God” and “real moral freedom.” But, apart from the question whether these claims are justified by candid examination of the doctrine,[56] we must protest against their being allowed any place at all in a metaphysical discussion. Metaphysics is, from first to last, a purely speculative activity; its one concern is to think logically about the constitution of Reality, and the only interests it has a right to consider are those of consistent logical thought. If consistent logical thought about ethical and religious problems involves the recognition of a “real God” and “real freedom,” and if these again are only possible on the pluralistic theory, then the mere process of consistent thought is bound in the end to lead us to a pluralistic result, and it is superfluous to appeal to extra-logical interests in the matter. But if those who defend Pluralism on the ground that it gives us a “real God” and “real freedom” mean that, apart from the question of their intellectual justification, these beliefs ought to be maintained in Metaphysics because certain persons will be less moral or less happy without them, we must answer that Metaphysics has nothing to do with making us moral or happy. It is no proof of the truth of a belief that it increases my personal virtue or happiness, nor of its falsity that it diminishes them. And if the study of Metaphysics could be shown to make certain persons less virtuous or less happy, Metaphysics would still be in no worse case than Ethics or Medicine. There may be persons for whom it is undesirable, on grounds of happiness or morality, to devote themselves to the pursuit of speculative truth, but it is none the less a lapse from intellectual single-mindedness for the man who has elected to play the game of speculation to violate its rules by indulging in constant appeals to speculatively irrelevant issues.[57]