It forms a part of the philosophic
atmosphere to-day. The tough think of the tender as sentimentalists
and soft-heads. The tender feel the tough to be unrefined, callous,
or brutal. Their mutual reaction is very much like that that takes
place when Bostonian tourists mingle with a population like that of
Cripple Creek. Each type believes the other to be inferior to
itself; but disdain in the one case is mingled with amusement, in
the other it has a dash of fear.
Now, as I have already insisted, few of us are tender-foot
Bostonians pure and simple, and few are typical Rocky Mountain
toughs, in philosophy. Most of us have a hankering for the good
things on both sides of the line. Facts are good, of course--give us
lots of facts. Principles are good--give us plenty of principles.
The world is indubitably one if you look at it in one way, but as
indubitably is it many, if you look at it in another. It is both one
and many--let us adopt a sort of pluralistic monism. Everything of
course is necessarily determined, and yet of course our wills are
free: a sort of free-will determinism is the true philosophy. The
evil of the parts is undeniable; but the whole can't be evil: so
practical pessimism may be combined with metaphysical optimism.
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