i THE ETHICAL BASIS OF METAPHYSICS 7 



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 accepting, maintaining, and modifying the 

 truth of their various propositions, we may come to 

 realize that what works best 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 James, so all-important is it to secure 

 the right action that (in cases of real intellectual alter 

 natives) 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 is not &quot; pure &quot; reason a 

 myth ? How can there be such a thing ? How, that is, 

 can we so separate our intellectual function from the whole 

 complex of our activities, that it can operate in real in 

 dependence of practical considerations ? I cannot but 

 conceive the reason as being, like the rest of our equip 

 ment, a weapon in the struggle for existence and a means 

 of achieving adaptation. It must follow that the use, which 

 has developed it, must have stamped itself upon its inmost 

 structure, even if it has not moulded it out of pre-rational 



1 Or, as 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. 



