ACTIVE SOCIAL ADAPTATION 287 



absolutists in philosophy, whether materialistic or spiritualistic, 

 heroes not pretend to think through these contradictions and 

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

 ' is a datumof experience hence a fact to be reckoned with in every , 

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

 his philosophy is a '' plurali stic univ erse ^^ ^ q^ ^q qj^^ hand and 

 "^gragnatism_^^ on the other; i. ey philosophy for him has no ^^^ 

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

 test of truth save the test of life,* and as thought cannot inter- >- y^^^^^ ^ 

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

 plurality y/ 



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." ^/ 

 He proposes this problem : " What are the causes that make com- (2W«-<-* 

 munities change from generation to generation, — that make the (3^^t!#c^*I< 

 England of Queen Anne so different from the England of EHza- ^/; P 

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

 thirty years ago ? " and answers, " The di fferenc e is due to the 

 accimiulated influences of individuals, of their examples, their 

 initiatives, and their decisions." He sets his own solution over ^i!^t^_^^.e,c^ 

 against that of Spencer and his fol lowers who hold, according to^^^^^^^^^^ 

 James, that " the changes go on irrespective of persons, and are • ' ^^^X*^^ 

 independent of individual control "; that '^ they are due to \)cl^ X-^ct^.^j^ 

 environment, to the circumstances, the physical geography, the 'J^^^etj^ 

 ancestral conditions, the increasing experience of outer relations, ^^^^''^^-'^^-tM 

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

 Joneses and the Sm iths." ^ 



^ Pragmatism, pp. 20 f. ' Pragmatism, p. 161. 



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



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



* 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 



