By way of an additional quotation or two from Mr. Bradley, typical of
his advance in the direction of the practical philosophy for which
Pragmatism stands, we may append the following: “I long ago pointed
out that theory takes its origin from practical collision [the main
contention of Professor Dewey and his associates]. _If Pragmatism
means this, I am a pragmatist_” (from an article in _Mind_ on the
“Ambiguity of Pragmatism”--italics mine). “We may reject the limitation
of knowledge to the mere world of events which happen, and may deny
the claim of this world to be taken as an ultimate foundation. Reality
or the Good will be the satisfaction of all the wants of our nature,
and _theoretical truth will be the perception of ideas which directly
satisfy one of those wants, and so invariably make part of the general
satisfaction_. This is a doctrine which, to my mind, commends itself as
true, though it naturally would call for a great deal of explanation”
(from _Mind_, July 1904, p. 325). And, as typical of the kind of final
philosophy to which the philosophical reconstruction of the future
must somehow attain out of the present quarrel between Pragmatism and
Rationalism, the following: “If there were no force in the world but
the vested love of God, if the wills in the past were one in effort and
in substance with the one Will, if in that Will they are living still
and still are so loving, and if again by faith, suffering, and love my
will is made really one with theirs, here indeed we should have found
at once our answer and our refuge. But with this we should pass surely
beyond the limits of any personal individualism” (from _Mind_, July
1904, p. 316). Dr. Schiller, by the way, has a list of such concessions
to Pragmatism on the part of Mr. Bradley in _Mind_, 1910, p. 35.
[134] Cf. the saying of Herbert Spencer (_Autobiography_, i. 253) that
a “belief in the unqualified supremacy of reason [is] the superstition
of philosophers.”
[135] See p. 147.
[136] “Truth and Practice,” _Mind_, No. 51.
[137] It would be easy to quote to the same effect from other Hegelian
students, or, for that part of it, from Hegel himself.
[138] _Elements of Metaphysics_, p. 411.
[139] _Ibid._ p. 414.
[140] Cf. p. 14.
[141] See the well-known volume _Personal Idealism_, edited by Mr.
Sturt.
[142] Cf. pp. 147 and 193.
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