If such an
hypothesis were legitimate, total oneness would appear at the end of
things rather than at their origin. In other words the notion of the
'Absolute' would have to be replaced by that of the 'Ultimate.' The
two notions would have the same content--the maximally unified
content of fact, namely--but their time-relations would be
positively reversed. [Footnote: Compare on the Ultimate, Mr.
Schiller's essay "Activity and Substance," in his book entitled
Humanism, p. 204.]
After discussing the unity of the universe in this pragmatic way,
you ought to see why I said in my second lecture, borrowing the word
from my friend G. Papini, that pragmatism tends to UNSTIFFEN all our
theories. The world's oneness has generally been affirmed abstractly
only, and as if anyone who questioned it must be an idiot. The
temper of monists has been so vehement, as almost at times to be
convulsive; and this way of holding a doctrine does not easily go
with reasonable discussion and the drawing of distinctions. The
theory of the Absolute, in particular, has had to be an article of
faith, affirmed dogmatically and exclusively. The One and All, first
in the order of being and of knowing, logically necessary itself,
and uniting all lesser things in the bonds of mutual necessity, how
could it allow of any mitigation of its inner rigidity? The
slightest suspicion of pluralism, the minutest wiggle of
independence of any one of its parts from the control of the
totality, would ruin it.
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