1 66 Science Religion and Reality 



experience, the acceptance of dogma is seen to depend entirely on 

 the individual conscience. 



But there is a still graver defect in the radical dualism of Ritschl. 

 This is the supposedly sharp division between the two dominions, 

 according to which science ought to confine itself solely to physical 

 phenomena, leaving spiritual facts to religion. The scientist will 

 not easily adapt himself to remaining shut up in the world of nature, 

 and no one can deny him the right of submitting even religious 

 feelings to the method of scientific research. It is of no use to put 

 up a notice " No admission." It is more useful to examine its pro- 

 cedure in order the better to sound its value. This is just what 

 Pragmatism has done. 



8. Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Philosophy 

 OF Action 



The confession of impotence by agnostic naturalism led, 

 towards the end of the century, to a return to the romantic spirit 

 of the beginning of the century. Science, of which Positivism had 

 been the first to proclaim the apotheosis, was submitted to criticism, 

 and revealed the abstraction of its concepts and of its theories, 

 which do not make us gather the reality of its living richness, but 

 only the skeleton of it. It was found that those theories are also 

 at bottom a human construction, variable and relative, and that they 

 suppose an act of faith at their roots. In this way the distinction 

 between pure reason and practical reason which Kant had made 

 was shown to be artificial, because the activity of the scientists is 

 itself directed to a practical end ; that is, to that of dominating 

 nature, of finding suitable schemes which may serve to guide us 

 through the complexity of the phenomena of experience. Thus 

 religion and science were reconciled in their common origin, 

 which is always an act of free will, a free adhesion of the spirit ; 

 and dualism was superseded. 



According to Pragmatism, of which William James and F. C. S. 

 Schiller are the most illustrious representatives, the sole function 

 of science is to serve for action, to provide us with methods to 

 follow in order that we may see this or that phenomenon appear, 

 or in order that we may obtain this or that result. A proposition 

 which does not generate practical results has no meaning. Two 

 propositions which bring no result in their manner of acting 

 differ only verbally. According to the Pragmatist, there is no 



