For what seriousness
can possibly remain in debating philosophic propositions that
will never make an appreciable difference to us in action? And
what could it matter, if all propositions were practically
indifferent, which of them we should agree to call true or which
false?
An American philosopher of eminent originality, Mr. Charles
Sanders Peirce, has rendered thought a service by disentangling
from the particulars of its application the principle by which
these men were instinctively guided, and by singling it out as
fundamental and giving to it a Greek name. He calls it the
principle of PRAGMATISM, and he defends it somewhat as
follows:[297]--
[297] In an article, How to make our Ideas Clear, in the Popular
Science Monthly for January, 1878, vol. xii. p. 286.
Thought in movement has for its only conceivable motive the
attainment of belief, or thought at rest. Only when our thought
about a subject has found its rest in belief can our action on
the subject firmly and safely begin. Beliefs, in short, are
rules for action; and the whole function of thinking is but one
step in the production of active habits.
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