July 14, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



43 



fore it is indeed unjust to confound prag- 

 matism with the cruder worship of effi- 

 ciency. 



IV 



Yet, I repeat, James's philosophy of life 

 was indeed, in its ethical aspects, an ex- 

 pression of the better spirit of our people. 

 He understood, he shared, and he also 

 transcended the American spirit. And 

 just that is what most marks him as our 

 national philosopher. If you want to esti- 

 mate his philosophy of life in its best form, 

 you must read or re-read, not the "Prag- 

 matism," but the essays contained in the 

 volume entitled ' ' The Will to Believe. ' ' 



May I still venture, as I close, to men- 

 tion a few features of the doctrine that is 

 embodied in that volume? The main ques- 

 tion repeatedly considered in these essays 

 of James is explicitly the question of an 

 empiricist, of a man averse to abstractions, 

 and of an essentially democratic thinker, 

 who does not believe that any final formu- 

 lation of an ideal of human life is possible 

 until the last man has had his experience 

 of life, and has uttered his word. But this 

 empiricism of the author is meanwhile the 

 empiricism of one who especially empha- 

 sizes the central importance of the active 

 life as the basis of our interpretation of 

 experience. Herein James differs from all 

 traditional positivists. Experience is never 

 yours merely as it comes to you. Pacts are 

 never mere data. They are data to which 

 you respond. Your experience is con- 

 stantly transformed by your deeds. That 

 this should be the case is determined by the 

 most essential characteristics of your con- 

 sciousness. James asserts this latter thesis 

 as psychologist, and has behind him, as he 

 writes, the vast mass of evidence that his 

 two psychological volumes present. The 

 simplest perception, the most elaborate sci- 

 entific theory, illustrate how man never 



merely finds, but also always cooperates in 

 creating his world. 



No doubt then life must be estimated 

 and guided with constant reference to ex- 

 perience, to consequences, to actual accom- 

 plishments, to what we Americans now call 

 efficiency. But on the other hand effi- 

 ciency itself is not to be estimated in terms 

 of mere data. Our estimate of our world 

 is not to be forced upon us by any mere 

 inspection of consequences. What makes 

 life worth living is not what you find in it, 

 but what you are ready to put into it by 

 your ideal interpretation of the meaning 

 that, as you insist, it shall possess for you. 

 This ideal meaning is always for you a 

 matter of faith not to be imposed coercively 

 upon another, but also never to be discov- 

 ered by watching who it is that wins, or 

 by merely feeling your present worldly 

 strength as a player of the game. Your 

 deeper ideals always depend upon viewing 

 life in the light of larger unities than now 

 appear, upon viewing yourself as a co- 

 worker with the universe for the attain- 

 ment of what no present human game of 

 action can now reveal. For this "radical 

 empiricist" then present experience al- 

 ways points beyond itself to a realm that 

 no human eye has yet seen — an empirical 

 realm of course, but one that you have a 

 right to interpret in terms of a faith that is 

 itself active, but that is not merely worldly 

 and athletic. The philosophy of action 

 thus so imperfectly suggested by the few 

 phrases that I have time to use, can best be 

 interpreted, for the moment, by observing 

 that the influence of Carlyle in many pas- 

 sages of this volume is as obvious as it is 

 by our author independently reinterpreted 

 and transformed. Imagine Carlyle trans- 

 formed into a representative American 

 thinker, trained as a naturalist, deeply 

 versed in psychology, deprived of his dis- 

 position to hatred, open-minded towards 



