PREFACE 



XI 



undertaking. Fortunately, however, a single illustration 

 will sufficiently indicate the sort of difference Pragmatism 

 would introduce into the traditional maltreatment. 



Let us consider a couple of actual, and probably 

 familiar, modes of reasoning, (i) The world is so bad 

 that tJiere. must be a better ; (2) the world is so bad that 

 there cannot be a better. It will probably be admitted 

 that both of these are common forms of argumentation, 

 and that neither is devoid of logical force, even though 

 in neither case does it reach demonstration. And yet 

 the two reasonings flatly contradict each other. Now 

 my suggestion is that this contradiction is not verbal, 

 but deep-rooted in the conflicting versions of the nature 

 of thought which they severally exemplify. The second 

 argument alone it would seem could claim to be strictly 

 logical. For it alone conforms to the canons of the 

 logical tradition which conceives reasoning as the product 

 of a pure thought untainted by volition. And as in 

 our theoretical reflections we can all disregard the 

 psychological conditions of actual thinking to the extent 

 of selecting examples in which we are interested merely 

 as examples, we can appreciate its abstract cogency. In 

 arguing from a known to an unknown part of the 

 universe, it is logical to be guided by the indications 

 given by the former. If the known is a fair sample of 

 the whole, how can the conclusion be otherwise than 

 sound ? At all events how can the given nature of the 

 known form a logical ground for inferring in the unknown 

 a complete reversal of its characteristics ? 



And yet this is precisely what the first argument 

 called for. Must not this be called the illogical caprice 

 of an irrational desire ? By no means. It is the 

 intervention of an emotional postulate which takes the 

 first step in the acquisition of new knowledge. But for 

 its beneficent activity we should have acquiesced in our 



