that, after borrowing the whole substance of my philosophy from Hegel, I have been guilty of making "vast and extravagant pretensions" as to my own "novelty," "originality," and "profundity," not only with regard to my published books, but also with regard to my "still unpublished system of philosophy." His words are these:-- "Of novelty, good or bad, the book contains, indeed, despite its vast pretensions, hardly a sign." "It is due also to the extravagant pretensions which he frequently makes of late as to the originality and profundity of his still unpublished system of philosophy, to give the reader some hint of what so far appears to be the nature of our author's contributions to philosophical reflection." Precisely what have been these alleged "pretensions"? Dr. Royce cites only three instances. I. He first garbles a sentence in the prefatory Note to "The Way out of Agnosticism," by quoting only one phrase from it. The sentence in full is this: "By a wholly new line of reasoning, drawn exclusively from those sources [science and philosophy], this book aims to show that, in order to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism, nothing is now necessary but to philosophize that very scientific method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and misuses." There is no "pretension" whatever in these words, except that the general "line of reasoning" set forth in the book is, _as a whole_, different from that of other books. If not, why publish it? Or, without the same cause, why publish any book? I see no reason to recall or to modify this perfectly true statement; Dr. Royce, at least, has shown none. The "novelty" of the book lies in its very attempt to evolve philosophy as a whole out of the scientific method itself, as "observation, hypothesis, and experimental verification," by developing the theory of universals which is implicit in that purely experiential method; and Dr. Royce does not even try to prove that Hegel, or anybody else, has ever made just such an attempt as that. Unless there can be shown somewhere a _parallel attempt_, the statement is as undeniably true as it is certainly unpretentious.