Like Americanism in general (which began, of course, as a revolutionary and a “liberationist” policy), Pragmatism is inclined in some ways to make too much of peoples’ rights and interests, and too little of their duties and privileges and of their real needs and their fundamental, human instincts. It is in the understanding alone of these latter things that true wisdom and true satisfaction[321] are to be found. And like the American demand for pleasure and for a good time generally, Pragmatism is in many respects too much a mere philosophy of “postulations” and “demands,” too much a mere formulation of the eager and impetuous demands of the emancipated man and woman of the time---as forgetful as they of many of the deeper[322] facts of life and of the economy of our human civilization. In demanding that the “consequences” of all pursuits (even those of study and philosophy) shall be “satisfying,” and that philosophy shall satisfy our active nature, it forgets the sense of disillusionment that comes to all rash and mistaken effort. It certainly does not follow that a man is going to get certain things from the world and from philosophy merely because he demands them any more than does the _discovery_ and the _possession_ of happiness follow from the “right”[323] of the individual to seek it in his own best way. Nor is it even true that man is called upon to “act” to anything like the extent contemplated by an unduly enthusiastic Americanism and an unduly enthusiastic Pragmatism. The writer is glad to be able to append in this connexion a quotation taken by an American critic of Pragmatism from Forberg in his criticism of the action-philosophy of Fichte: “Action, action, is the vocation of man! Strictly speaking, this principle is false. Man is not called upon to act, but to act justly. If he cannot act without acting unjustly he had better remain inactive.” It would not be difficult to match this quotation, or perhaps to surpass it, with something from Carlyle in respect of the littleness of man’s claims, not merely for enjoyment, but even for existence; but we will pass on. Pragmatism, as we have suggested, certainly falls too readily into line with the tendency of the age to demand means and instruments and utilities and working satisfactions, instead of ends and purposes and values, to demand pleasure and enjoyment instead of happiness and blessedness. Instead of allowing itself to do this it should have undertaken a criticism both of the so-called “wants” of the age, and of the soundness of its own views in respect of the truth and the happiness that are proper to man as man. There is a fine epigram of Goethe’s in respect of the limitations of the revolutionary and the liberationist attitude of those who would seek to “free” men without first trying to understand them, and to help them to their true inward development.