PRAGMATISM AND THE FORM OF THOUGHT 211 



of thought, as we know it, though fairly clear in certain respects, 

 is sadly obscure in some others. Our conceptions of it have 

 undergone some very decided modifications in the past, and no 

 doubt will be profoundly modified in the future. The assertion, 

 then, that thought has a universal form, could we but know it, 

 is without scientific significance. And to assert absolute uni- 

 versality for any statement of its form which we can make, 

 is to lapse into indefensible rationalism. 



Nor, for similar reasons, are we committed to any dogma with 

 regard to the relation of the form of thought to its content. We 

 must, however, frankly admit one necessary assumption, 

 namely, that hypothetically to recognize any definite form of 

 thought at all is hypothetically to recognize it as a universal 

 under which various contents are subsumed without change in 

 itself. But the self-contradiction if such there be is no greater 

 than is involved in any general proposition whatsoever. For 

 no proposition can contain the confession of its own imperma- 

 nence. And it is of no avail to object that 'form,' as distinguished 

 from 'content,' is a category of ignorance or of imperfect knowl- 

 edge; for so are all our other categories. 



Herein, though we have departed from the letter of the prag- 

 matist doctrine, we believe we have remained true to its deeper 

 spirit. Our criticism is, indeed, that it has contained a vital 

 inconsistency. In the theory of inference that inconsistency 

 appears as a denial of the reciprocality of determination, as 

 exemplified in the relation of premise and conclusion. Whereas 

 rationalism had made the former prior in authority, pragmatism 

 has simply reversed the order of dependence and made the con- 

 clusion prior to the premise. Thus, for pragmatism as for ration- 

 alism, the inference has ultimately vanished altogether. 



It is not necessary for us to examine at length the specific 

 criticisms which the pragmatist urges against the traditional 

 schema of the form of thought, namely, the syllogism. It is 

 true that the formula of the syllogism does imply that the terms 

 are distinct and fixed in meaning, at least so far as to ensure the 



