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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 863 



regarding God and humanity simply by 

 reading for himself the meaning of his 

 own religious experience. With a mys- 

 terious power of philosophical intuition, 

 even in his early youth, he observed 

 what, upon the basis of what we know 

 to have been his range of philosophical 

 reading, we could not possibly have ex- 

 pected him to observe. If the sectarian 

 theological creed that he defended was 

 to our minds narrow, what he himself 

 saw was very far-reaching and pro- 

 found. For he viewed religious problems 

 with synoptic vision that enabled him to 

 reconcile, in his own personal way, some 

 of the greatest and most tragic conflicts of 

 the spiritual world, and what he had to 

 say consequently far transcended the in- 

 terests of the special . theological issues 

 which he discussed. Meanwhile, he spoke 

 not merely as a thinker, but as one who 

 gave voice to some of the central motives 

 and interests of our colonial religious life. 

 Therefore he was, in order of time the 

 first of our nationally representative phi- 

 losophers. 



Another stage of our civilization — a 

 later phase of our national ideals — found 

 its representative in Emerson. He too was 

 in close touch with many of the world's 

 deepest thoughts concerning ultimate 

 problems. Some of the ideas that most 

 influenced him have their far-off historical 

 origins in oriental as well as in Greek 

 thought, and also their nearer foreign 

 sources in modern European philosophy. 

 But he transformed whatever he assimi- 

 lated. He invented upon the basis of his 

 personal experience, and so he was him- 

 self no disciple of the orient, or of Greece, 

 still less of England and of Germany. He 

 thought, felt and spoke as an American. 



Fifty years ago, I say, our nation had 

 so far found these two men to express each 

 his own stage of the philosophy of our 



national civilization. The essence of a 

 philosophy, in case you look at it solely 

 from a historical point of view, always 

 appears to you thus: A great philosophy 

 expresses an interpretation of the life of 

 man and a view of the universe, which is 

 at once personal, and if the thinker is rep- 

 resentative of his people, national in its 

 significance. Edwards and Emerson had 

 given tongue to the meaning of two differ- 

 ent stages of our American culture. And 

 these were thus far our only philosophical 

 voices. 



To-day, if we ask any competent foreign 

 critic of our philosophy whether there is 

 any other name to be added to these two 

 classic American philosophers, we shall re- 

 ceive the unanimous answer: "There is to- 

 day a third representative American philos- 

 opher. His name is William James." 

 For James meets the two conditions just 

 mentioned. He has thought for himself, 

 fruitfully, with true independence, and 

 with successful inventiveness. And he has 

 given utterance to ideas which are charac- 

 teristic of a stage and of an aspect of the 

 spiritual life of this people. He, too, has 

 been widely and deeply affected by the his- 

 tory of thought. But he has reinterpreted 

 all these historical influences in his own 

 personal way. He has transformed what- 

 ever he has assimilated. He has rediscov- 

 ered whatever he has received from with- 

 out ; because he never could teach what he 

 had not himself experienced. And, in 

 addition, he has indeed invented effectively 

 and richly. Moreover, in him certain 

 characteristic aspects of our national civil- 

 ization have found their voice. He is thus 

 the third in the order of time among 

 our representative American philosophers. 

 Already, within a year of his death, he has 

 begun to acquire something of a classic 

 rank and dignity. In future this rank 

 and dignity will long increase. In one of 



