Chapter V

But, gentlemen, the gravest aspect of Dr. Royce's ostensible review remains still to be considered. Is libel--vulgar, violent, and brutal libel--the means by which Harvard University, represented by one of her professors of philosophy who openly claims to address the general public in the name of his office and of her, proposes to realize the lofty ideal of her President, and make herself the "philosophical pioneer" for each new generation in the pursuit of truth? Is this the welcome which she accords to serious, dignified, and not unscholarly works, giving the results, however partially and imperfectly wrought out, of patient and independent reflection for more than thirty years on the highest problems of human life and thought? Is this the best sympathy and encouragement she has to offer to her own sons when they take up in earnest the task of helping her to realize her own ideal? Is this the attitude in which she confronts the great questions of the age, and the spirit which she aims to foster in her young men? I do not believe it; but you alone, gentlemen, can give the authoritative answer to such queries.

When civil service reformers plead the urgent necessity of political reform, they are irrelevantly charged by the adherents of the spoils system with being "hypocrites and pharisees." Precisely so, when I plead the urgent necessity of philosophical reform, I am irrelevantly charged by Dr. Royce, in effect, with being a false pretender, a plagiarist, and an impostor. The charge is just as true in one case as in the other. But, be the charge true or untrue, the attention of keen and candid minds is not to be diverted by this perfectly transparent device from the main point of reform.

What is this needed philosophical reform?

Briefly, _to substitute the scientific method for the idealistic method in philosophy_, as the only possible means, in this critical and sceptical age, of making ethics and religion so reasonable as to command the continued allegiance of reasonable minds. Unphilosophized science conceives the universe as nothing but a Machine-World; and in this conception there is no room for any Ethical Ideal. Unscientific philosophy conceives the universe as nothing but a Thought-World; and in this conception there is no room for any Mechanical Real. On the possibility of developing a scientific philosophy out of the scientific method itself must depend at last the only possibility, for reasonable men, of believing equally in the real principles of mechanical science and in the ideal principles of ethical science. To-day the greatest obstacle to such a reasonable belief is the "philosophical idealism" which directly contradicts it; and the greatest reform needed in modern thought, above all in the theory of ethics, is the substitution of the scientific method for the idealistic method in philosophy itself.

The cause of philosophical reform, indeed, cannot be long delayed by any Philistinism in those who, by their professional position, ought to be its most ardent friends. The method of science is destined to revolutionize philosophy--to modernize it by founding it anew upon a thoroughly realistic and scientific theory of universals. The net result of all the physical sciences thus far, the one fixed result to which all their other results steadily point with increasingly evident convergence, is that _the already known constitution of the real universe is that of the Machine_. This universal fixed result, and not mere individual self-consciousness, is the necessary and only beginning-point of a constructive philosophy of Nature; for, where the special sciences end, there universal philosophy must begin. It is the task of philosophy to-day to show that the unquestionably mechanical constitution of the universe, instead of being the ultimate boundary of scientific investigation, is merely the starting-point in a new series of investigations, no less scientific than those of physical science, but far more profound; and to show that the mechanical constitution itself, when deeply studied and comprehended, necessarily involves the organic and the personal constitutions. In this way, and I believe in no other way, can it be proved to the satisfaction of the modern intelligence that the Mechanical Real itself, at bottom, includes the Ethical Ideal--that the Moral Law, the Divine Ideal itself, is the innermost Fact of Nature. I have made, and make now, not the slightest personal "pretension"; but, finding in all my reading no outline of any such argument as this, and believing it to be fruitful of the very noblest results, I have done my best to point out its possibilities to other earnest searchers after truth. Not until this new field has been faithfully examined and explored and proved to be sterile, shall I cease to recommend it to the attention of all who would fain _see reason_ to believe that the Ethical Ideal is no Unreality, but rather the innermost Reality of the real universe itself. I speak only to those who have souls to hear and to respond; let the rest listen to Dr. Royce, and be dupes of his "professional warning." But the cause of philosophical reform will not be stayed by him or by them: the world's heart is hungry for higher truth than idealism can discover, and will be grateful in the end to any philosophy which shall show what mighty moral conviction, what unspeakable spiritual invigoration, must needs grow out of comprehension of the despised Real.

These thoughts are not remote abstractions, up in the air, out of reach, of no practical value or application; they touch the very life and soul of Harvard University. For want of such thoughts, many of the brightest and most intellectual of her students, graduates from the philosophical courses, go out year after year disbelieving totally in the possibility of arriving at any fundamental "truth" whatever, even in ethics. Several years ago, the then President of the Harvard "Philosophical Club" said in my hearing that he "saw no ground of moral obligation anywhere in the universe"; and this declaration was apparently assented to by every one of the fifteen or twenty members present. This very last summer, a recent graduate told me that he left college bewildered, depressed, and "disheartened," because he saw nowhere any ground of rational "conviction" about anything; and that it was "just the same with all the other fellows"--that is, all his companions in the study of philosophy. It is time, high time, that this state of things should be searchingly investigated in the interest of Harvard University itself, the facts determined, their causes ascertained. While such a state of things prevails, Harvard conspicuously fails to be a "philosophical pioneer" except in a distinctly retrograde direction--conspicuously fails to discharge the highest service which she owes to the world: namely, to send out her young graduates well armed beforehand for the battle of life with clear, strong, and lofty _moral convictions_. Whatever other causes may exist for the failure, one cause at least is certain--the self-proved and amazing inability of one of her professors of philosophy to give an honest or intelligent reception to a thoughtful, closely reasoned, and earnest plea for philosophical reform in this very direction, or to criticise it with anything better than irrelevant and unparliamentary personalities, studied and systematic misrepresentation both of the plea and of the pleader, and a demoralizing example of libel, so bitter and so extreme as to furnish abundant ground for prosecution.