" TRUTH AMOXG THE PRAGMATISTS. I97 



the rights of our voHtional nature to have a sav in the matter, 

 by pointing out the practically true results of the " wish to 

 believe."' But if the intellect needs a corrective, much more does 

 the will ; and this corrective is not sufficiently supplied by prag- 

 matism. Experience, coloured by what a man desires to be true, 

 is a poor check on the vagaries of self-hypnotism. 



Another reaction on the part of pragmatists takes the form 

 of repudiating a too crude interpretation of the copv-book theory 

 of knowdedge. But. because what is real in nature cannot be 

 perfectly reproduced imder everv aspect in the mind, the prag- 

 matist has gratuitously assumed that " realitv does not appear 

 to us as it really is."* Ignoring the middle possibility 

 that the concepts of the mind may be copies of reality, faith- 

 ful as far as they go. i.e., as representations, they are carried 

 away by an idealistic ])rejudice. Hence they refuse to see any 

 truth along that line, and repudiate the \\hole position oi the 

 realists. 



With these tilts in violent opposition to a moflerate realism 

 the pragmatists are like men hopping on one leg. to use a simile 

 of theirs. This is an unnatural mode of locomotion, however 

 dexterouslv used. So pragmatism will always be a forced and 

 unnatural theory of knowledge, whatever the abilit}' of those who 

 expound it. 



Lastly, it is hard to see how the pragmatists of all schools 

 can escape the charge of ])ure sul)jectiveness. which is fatal to 

 knowledge as contrasted with fancy. This part of the subject 

 has. 1 think, been splendidly developed by Prof. W'alkert. 

 He points out that, on the pragmatists' own admission, all prag- 

 matic knowledge is tinged by tlieir ])ersonal idiosyncrasies. On 

 their hypothesis there are really no independent facts, but only 

 facts transfigured by human interest ; and the test of their truth- 

 value only proves their usefulness, not their objectivity in the 

 ordinary sense of that term. When we turn to the pragmatists 

 and ask to see the objective data, which may save their knowledge 

 from pure subjectivity, we are shown either " sensations," or 

 " imminent deposits in the mind," or " conceptual parts of our 

 experience." There is nothing to indicate that all these recondite 

 psychological facts have any real dependence on data in the 

 physical world. Unless the pragmatist establishes some con- 

 nexion of the kind, we cannot be expected to share his feelings 

 when he says that he 



" feels the immense pressure of objective control under which our minds 

 perform their operations." X 



Such feelings might easily be classed as delusions by those who 

 do not share them. They certainly must lead to many delusive 

 consequences, if the feeling of objective control is to be left in 

 the vague terms in which the pragmatists are content to leave it. 



* Walker, p. 586. 



t §§ 384-392. 



X James, " Pragmatism," p. 233. 



