PREFACE xvii 



of Pure Reason. Still, in some cases, the desire for 

 knowledge may prove stronger than the attachment to 

 habitual modes of thought, and so it may not be wholly 

 fruitless to point out (i) that our objections are in no 

 wise disposed of by vague charges of a confusion of 

 psychology and logic ; (2) that the canons of right 

 Thought must, even from the most narrowly logical of 

 standpoints, be brought into some relation to the pro 

 cedures of actual thinking ; (3) that in point of fact the 

 former are derived from the latter ; (4) that if so, our 

 first mode of reasoning must receive logical recognition, 

 because (5) it is not only usual, but useful in the dis 

 covery of Truth ; (6) that a process which yields 

 valuable results must in some sense be valid, and (7) 

 that, conversely, an ideal of validity which is not realizable 

 is not valid, even as an ideal. In short, how can a logic 

 which professes to be the theory of thought set aside as 

 irrelevant a normal feature of our thinking ? And if it can 

 not, is it not evident that, when reformed by Pragmatism, 

 it must assume a very different complexion, more natural 

 and clearer, than while its movements were shackled by 

 the conventions of a strait-laced Intellectualism ? 



Secondly, Pragmatism would find an almost in 

 exhaustible field of exploration in the sciences, by 

 examining the multifarious ways in which their truths 

 have come to be established, and showing how the 

 practical value of scientific conceptions has accelerated 

 and decided their acceptance. Nor is it over-sanguine 

 to suppose that a clearer consciousness of the actual 

 procedure of the sciences will also lead to the critical 

 rejection of notions which are not needed, and are not 

 useful, and facilitate the formation of new conceptions 

 which are needed. 1 



1 Most opportunely for my argument the kind of transformation of our 

 scientific ideas which Pragmatism will involve has received the most copious and 

 admirable illustration in Professor Ostwald s great Naturphilosophie. Professor 



b 



