726 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



85. the writino-s of the American philosopher, William James. 



W. James. ° r r ' 



He has brought together under the name of Pragmatism 

 certain trains of reasoning peculiar to himself, but sug- 

 gested likewise by contemporary writers in America and, 

 to a lesser degree, in this country. For the understand- 

 ing, diffusion, and acceptance of the teachings of this 

 most recent school of philosophical thought, it has been 

 of great value that it has concentrated its efforts upon 

 the solution of a purely logical question, and that it 

 gives this solution in a few simple words. The problem 

 is the old question : What is truth ? The answer : 

 Truth is that which works. William James himself 

 frankly admits that the new term Pragmatism, which 

 was evolved in a conversation of his with a friend, is to 

 a large extent a new name for Ideas which are not new. 

 And similarly, in addition to a few striking and original 

 logical dissertations, a great deal of the propaganda of 

 the Pragmatists lies in the pains they are taking to show 

 how in modern, but still more in ancient, philosophy the 

 fundamental conception of their creed is variously anti- 

 cipated : an argument which tells as much against the 

 originality as it does for the universality of their central 

 doctrine. 



86. These latest developments of philosophic thought, 

 absence which rcach into the first decade of the twentieth cen- 



of system. 



tury, and so do not come into the scheme of this His- 

 tory, do not advance to a complete systematic treatment 

 such as we meet with in the works of Herbert Spencer 

 and of Professor Wundt. Among the more recent thinkers 

 it is only M. Fouillee who has demonstrated the value 

 of his central idea by dealing with some of the standard 



