ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 287 



absolutists in philosophy, whether materialistic or spiritualistic, 

 he does not pretend to think through these contradictions and 

 resolve them into an ultimate harmony. 1 For him, real freedom 

 is a datum of experience hence a fact to be reckoned with in every 

 attempt to interpret life in terms of thought. 2 The outcome of 

 his philosophy is a " pluralistic universe " 3 on the one hand and 

 " pragmatism " on the other; i. e., philosophy for him has no 

 value except for life, no truth except as it is true to life, and no 

 test of truth save the test of life, 4 and as thought cannot inter- 

 pret all the facts of life in terms of unity it must use those of 

 plurality. 



From this point of view it is natural that he should criticize the 

 monism of Spencer and the attempts of all strictly logical evolu- 

 tionists to evolve the complexities of the universe as we know it 

 and of life as we experience it, from one primordial principle 

 whether matter, force, or matter-force. 



Turning specifically to the subject of this chapter, James made 

 a notable contribution in an article in the Atlantic Monthly in 

 1880 on " Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment." 5 

 He proposes this problem: " What are the causes that make com- 

 munities change from generation to generation, that make the 

 England of Queen Anne so different from the England of Eliza- 

 beth, the Harvard College of today so different from that of 

 thirty years ago ? " and answers, " The difference is due to the 

 accumulated influences of individuals, of their examples, their 

 initiatives, and their decisions." He sets his own solution over 

 against that of Spencer and his followers who hold, according to 

 James, that " the changes go on irrespective of persons, and are 

 independent of individual control "; that " they are due to the 

 environment, to the circumstances, the physical geography, the 

 ancestral conditions, the increasing experience of outer relations, 

 to everything, in fact, except the Grants, and the Bismarcks, the 

 Joneses and the Smiths." 6 



1 Pragmatism, pp. 20 f. 3 Pragmatism, p. 161. 



2 The Will to Believe, p. 175. 4 Ibid., Lecture II. 

 8 Reprinted in The Will to Believe, pp. 216 ff. 



8 John Fiske as a follower of Spencer repudiates this interpretation (Excursions 

 of an Evolutionist, ch. VI), and quotes Spencer as saying that sociology " has in 



