7 



reason which is humanised and a faith which is rationalised in 

 the very process which shows their antithesis to be an error. 



That, however, Pragmatism should have begun by 

 intervening in the ancient controversy between Reason 

 and Faith was something of an accident. In itself it 

 might equally well have been arrived at by way of a 

 moral revolt from the unfruitful logic-chopping and aimless 

 quibbling which is often held to be the sum total of 

 philosophy. 



Or again, it might be reached, most instructively, by a 

 critical consideration of many historic views, notably those 

 of Kant and Lotze, 1 and of the unsolved problems which 

 they leave on our hands. Or, once more, by observing 

 the actual procedure of the various sciences and their 

 motives for establishing and maintaining the truth of 

 their various propositions, we may come to realise that 

 what works in practice is what in actual knowing we 

 accept as true. 



But to me personally the straightest road to Pragmatism 

 is one which the extremest prejudice can scarce suspect 

 of truckling to the encroachments of theology. Instead 

 of saying like Professor James, so all-important is it to 

 secure the right action that (in cases of real intellectual 

 alternatives) it is lawful for us to adopt the belief most 

 congenial with our spiritual needs and to try whether our 

 faith will not make it come true, I should rather say the 

 traditional notion of beliefs determined by pure reason 

 alone is wholly incredible. For how can there be such 

 a thing as &quot; pure &quot; reason ? How, that is, can we so 

 separate our intellectual function from the whole complex 

 of our activities, that it can operate in real independence 

 of practical considerations ? I cannot but conceive the 

 reason as being, like the rest of our equipment, a weapon 

 in the struggle for existence and a means of achieving 

 adaptation. It must follow that the practical use, which 

 has developed it, must have stamped itself upon its inmost 



1 Or, as Professor James suggested, and as Prof. A. W. Moore has actually 

 done in the case of Locke (see his Functional -versus the Representational Theory 

 of Knowledge], by a critical examination of the English philosophers. 



