30 HUMANISM n 



way, perhaps, to a higher truth, to which we may follow 

 him, passing through the absurdity of his actual view, 

 which is far greater than I have had time to indicate. 



Let us go on, then, at once to something more 

 reasonable. 



I will go on then to the view of the Pragmatists. 

 May one not say, fourthly, that there is no opposition 

 between speculative and practical wisdom because the 

 former arises out of the latter and remains always deriva 

 tive and secondary and subservient and useful ? 



One may say that or any other nonsense, but if one 

 does, one must say what one means. And one cannot 

 always prove what one says. 



I thought that would excite you, Aristotle. But I 

 thought it better to reveal to you the whole aim of my 

 argument before I proceeded to reach it. 



You are still far from your aim. 



I am coming to it, in good time. Meanwhile have 

 you observed that this position which I hope to reach is 

 the exact converse of the first, of Plato s ? 



You mean that you also deny the opposition between 

 dewpla and 7r/oa|t9, but derive the former from the latter ? 



Exactly so. I entirely deny the independence of the 

 speculative reason. And I assert that you were quite 

 wrong in drawing the distinctions you did between the 

 objects of dewpia and of Trpagis. 



Do you then deny that the good which is the aim of 

 practical wisdom is merely human ? 



Not at all ; but I assert that the true, which you 

 imagine to be in some sense superhuman, is also merely 

 human. It is the true for us, the true for us as practical 

 beings, just as the good is the good for us. 



&amp;lt; How so? 



Why, quite simply. Are not colour and shape and 

 size perceived by the senses ? 



Certainly. 



And are not the senses human, and relative to us and 

 to our needs in life, in the same way as our perception of 

 the good and the sweet ? 



