PREFACE. 



The term 'dogmatism' is here used to denote the body of logical 

 assumptions which were generally made by thinkers of all schools, 

 before the rise of theories of social and organic evolution. Its 

 application is therefore wider than common usage would warrant. 

 The empiricism of Berkeley and Hume, as well as the rationalism 

 of Descartes and Leibniz, is included in its scope. The first 

 part of the present work is devoted to the analysis and illustration 

 of the dogmatic principles. In the later parts we have examined 

 some of the philosophies by which dogmatism has, upon one 

 side or another, been assailed: the critical philosophy, absolute 

 idealism, and, at much greater length, pragmatism. 



It is to an excursion over well-traveled roads that the reader 

 is invited. A glance over the pages will show them to be fairly 

 sprinkled with the great names Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, 

 Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Mill, 

 James while few others are mentioned except in passing. In 

 a history this would be a sore defect. But our object was not 

 history, but the critical analysis of principles; and this required 

 the confinement of the discussion to a comparatively few systems 

 that would be recognized as typical. 



While these pages were in press, William James passed away. 

 The debt which we, in common with all of the younger American 

 thinkers, owe to him cannot be measured unless, perhaps, by 

 the very eagerness with which we have upon many points at- 

 tacked him. With the other leader of the American pragmatists, 

 Professor John Dewey, we stand in a much closer sympathy. 

 We say this here, because the hostile criticism which we have 

 passed upon his theory of immediate empiricism ought not to 

 disguise our direct indebtedness to him upon other lines. To 

 Mr. Schiller no direct reference has been made, but certain of 

 his characteristic positions are noticed in Appendix I. 



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