PRESENT PHILOSOPHICAL TENDENCIES CHAPTER I PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY AND ESTABLISHED Discrepancy BELIEF §1. It is impossible to undertake a summary of philosophical tendencies without being sensible of the breach between the philosophy of the schools and the philosophy of the streets, between the latest speculations, hypotheses, and definitions of critical experts, and the general beliefs of mankind. This discrepancy is not peculiar to philosophy. There is a similar difference between pure science and popular science, between political theory and political faith or tradition. But in neither case is the difference so confusing or disturbing as in the case of philosophy. Confusion between pure and popular science is avoided by the development of an organized technique, which makes pure science largely unintelligible to the layman; and there is little danger of a premature application of scientific hypotheses, because of the material difficulties which must be overcome before any such hypothesis can be applied. The same holds, although much less certainly, of politics. Political action is based on the steady and widespread acceptance, within a community, of certain general beliefs that are not immediately affected by the fluctuations of theory. And here also the application of theory must, except under extraordinary condi 1Reprinted, with additions and alterations, from an article entitled "Theories and Beliefs," Harvard Theological Review, Vol. III, July, 1910. tions, move at a slow pace because of the complexity of the instrumentalities employed. It may be argued that the common philosophical beliefs are similarly protected and rendered stable by their wide interpenetration with social interests, and by the authority of established religion. But the fact remains that a philosophical revolution is more easily accomplished than a political revolution. The reason for this lies in the fact that a philosophy, unlike a polity, is an individual matter. A man may reconstruct his Weltanschauung-establish his world of thought upon a new foundation, and rearrange his order of values without encountering any greater resistance than the inertia of his own habits. And such a revolution is the more easily accomplished in an individualistic era like the present, in which the church has relaxed its hold upon the minds of men. If, then, there be any practical risk in the exposure of belief to the variability of theory, that risk will be peculiarly great in the case of philosophy. And there is also a peculiar liability to confusion here, because theoretical philosophy has never as yet succeeded in developing a technique of its own. The terms of philosophical research and speculation are largely the terms of religious belief; so that the layman too readily identifies the tentative hypotheses of the investigator with the venerable symbols of his faith. §2. Both theory and belief, the new word of critical speculation, and the old assumptions of life, are forms of knowledge. And although it is necessary that these Belief as Forms forms should be distinguished and even of Knowledge, separately organized, that necessity should Theory and Having the Same Funda- not blind us to the fact that their value is fun mental Value damentally the same. That the control of nature through the advancement of knowledge is the instrument of progress and the chief ground of hope, is the axiom of modern civilization. This is more peculiarly a modern idea than is commonly supposed. The ancient world had its dogmatic and its critical idea of progress. The |