xvi HUMANISM 



famed in history and literature, and to denominate 

 HUMANISM the attitude of thought which I know to be 

 habitual in William James and in myself, which seems to 

 be sporadic and inchoate in many others, and which is 

 destined, I believe, to win the widest popularity. There 

 would indeed be no flavour of extravagance and paradox 

 about this last suggestion, were it not that the professional 

 study of Philosophy has so largely fallen into the hands 

 of recluses who have lost all interest in the practical 

 concerns of humanity, and have rendered philosophy like 

 unto themselves, abstruse, arid, abstract and abhorrent. 

 But in itself there is no reason why this should be the 

 character of philosophy. The final theory of life ought 

 to be every man s concern, and if we can dispel the notion 

 that the tiresome technicalities of philosophy lead to 

 nothing of the least practical interest, it yet may be. 

 There is ground, then, for the hope that the study of a 

 humaner philosophy may prove at least as profitable and 

 enjoyable as that of the humaner letters. 



In all but name Humanism has long been in existence. 

 Years ago I described one of its most precious texts, 

 William James s Will to Believe^ as a &quot; declaration of the 

 independence of the concrete whole of man with all his 

 passions and emotions unexpurgated, directed against 

 the cramping rules and regulations by which the Brahmins 

 of the academic caste are tempted to impede the free 

 expansion of human life,&quot; and as &quot; a most salutary 

 doctrine to preach to a biped oppressed by many 

 -ologies, like modern man, and calculated to allay his 

 growing doubts whether he has a responsible personality 

 and a soul and conscience of his own, and is not a mere 

 phantasmagoria of abstractions, a transient complex of 

 shadowy formulas that Science calls the laws of nature. &quot; 

 Its great lesson was, I held, that &quot;there are not really 



1 In reviewing it for Mind in October 1897 (N.S. No. 24, p. 548). 



