V. DISCUSSIONS. PRAGMATISM AND PSEUDO-PRAGMATISM. PROF. TAYLOB'S rejoinder (in N.S., 57) to my criticism (in N.S., 54 and 55) of some of his recent utterances is so interesting and relevant that it is a real pleasure to reply to it. It has however two sides. The first will doubtless have been welcomed by all interested in the questions of the hour as throwing a great deal of light on several of the darkest corners of the pragmatic controversy, and as contributing the most lucid statement of some intellectualist objections the exact meaning of which has long been a puzzle to all of us, in short as eminently calculated to dispel much of the fog which has hitherto enveloped the real issue. Personally I feel that I now know almost exactly where Prof. Taylor stands, and though he has not come out quite where I expected, I am abund- antly grateful to him for clearing up the situation. I can only hope that if I reciprocate in a similar spirit of frankness, he will be able to say the same for me and that the fog will then be wholly gone. The other side of Prof. Taylor's article consists of personal grievances and accusations against me, concerning which he seems to me to have said rather more than was either just or necessary. I shall however refer to these as lightly as possible, partly be- cause of my gratitude for the enlightenment aforesaid, partly because I was provoked to give him the annoyance of looking up a good many references (whereof one was I grieve to say mis- printed), for which allowance must be made, and, lastly, because it is a waste of time to bandy words with an opponent willing to argue honestly. Prof. Taylor's main grievance is that he should have been sus- pected of syncretism, i.e. of attempting to graft on his old stock of absolutism doctrines springing from much younger roots : but I am at a loss to apprehend why he should take this as an insult. I can well conceive, and readily pardon, an absolutist philosopher insacking all markets in his desire to enrich the barren doctrine at the Absolute is absolute. And though in this case the rival lews look in some lights incongruous enough, I dare not (as yet) ~rm it impossible for a philosopher, who fully realised the weak- ss of the absolutist and the strength of the humanist position in rtain respects, to succeed in combining them. There was there-
