If
theological ideas should do this, if the notion of God, in
particular, should prove to do it, how could pragmatism possibly
deny God's existence? She could see no meaning in treating as 'not
true' a notion that was pragmatically so successful. What other kind
of truth could there be, for her, than all this agreement with
concrete reality?
In my last lecture I shall return again to the relations of
pragmatism with religion. But you see already how democratic she is.
Her manners are as various and flexible, her resources as rich and
endless, and her conclusions as friendly as those of mother nature.
Lecture III
Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered
I am now to make the pragmatic method more familiar by giving you
some illustrations of its application to particular problems. I will
begin with what is driest, and the first thing I shall take will be
the problem of Substance. Everyone uses the old distinction between
substance and attribute, enshrined as it is in the very structure of
human language, in the difference between grammatical subject and
predicate. Here is a bit of blackboard crayon. Its modes,
attributes, properties, accidents, or affections,--use which term
you will,--are whiteness, friability, cylindrical shape,
insolubility in water, etc.
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