The abstract ideas of which the air
consists, indispensable for life, but irrespirable by themselves, as
it were, and only active in their re-directing function. All similes
are halting but this one rather takes my fancy. It shows how
something, not sufficient for life in itself, may nevertheless be an
effective determinant of life elsewhere.
In this present hour I wish to illustrate the pragmatic method by
one more application. I wish to turn its light upon the ancient
problem of 'the one and the many.' I suspect that in but few of you
has this problem occasioned sleepless nights, and I should not be
astonished if some of you told me it had never vexed you. I myself
have come, by long brooding over it, to consider it the most central
of all philosophic problems, central because so pregnant. I mean by
this that if you know whether a man is a decided monist or a decided
pluralist, you perhaps know more about the rest of his opinions than
if you give him any other name ending in IST. To believe in the one
or in the many, that is the classification with the maximum number
of consequences. So bear with me for an hour while I try to inspire
you with my own interest in the problem.
Philosophy has often been defined as the quest or the vision of the
world's unity.
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