We could not say 'yes, yes'
to both alternatives. There would have to be a 'no' in our relations
with the possible. We should confess an ultimate disappointment: we
could not remain healthy-minded and sick-minded in one indivisible
act.
Of course as human beings we can be healthy minds on one day and
sick souls on the next; and as amateur dabblers in philosophy we may
perhaps be allowed to call ourselves monistic pluralists, or free-
will determinists, or whatever else may occur to us of a reconciling
kind. But as philosophers aiming at clearness and consistency, and
feeling the pragmatistic need of squaring truth with truth, the
question is forced upon us of frankly adopting either the tender or
the robustious type of thought. In particular THIS query has always
come home to me: May not the claims of tender-mindedness go too far?
May not the notion of a world already saved in toto anyhow, be too
saccharine to stand? May not religious optimism be too idyllic? Must
ALL be saved? Is NO price to be paid in the work of salvation? Is
the last word sweet? Is all 'yes, yes' in the universe? Doesn't the
fact of 'no' stand at the very core of life? Doesn't the very
'seriousness' that we attribute to life mean that ineluctable noes
and losses form a part of it, that there are genuine sacrifices
somewhere, and that something permanently drastic and bitter always
remains at the bottom of its cup?
I can not speak officially as a pragmatist here; all I can say is
that my own pragmatism offers no objection to my taking sides with
this more moralistic view, and giving up the claim of total
reconciliation.
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