PREFACE


Mr. Murray's youthful modesty insists that his study of Pragmatism needs
a sponsor; this is not at all my own opinion, but I may take the
opportunity of pointing out how singularly qualified he is to give a
good account of it.

In the first place he is young, and youth is an almost indispensable
qualification for the appreciation of novelty; for the mind works more
and more stiffly as it grows older, and becomes less and less capable of
absorbing what is new. Hence, if our 'great authorities' lived for ever,
they would become complete _Struldbrugs_. This is the justification of
death from the standpoint of social progress. And as there is no subject
in which _Struldbruggery_ is more rampant than in philosophy, a youthful
and nimble mind is here particularly needed. It has given Mr. Murray an
eye also to the varieties of Pragmatism and to their connections.

Secondly, Mr. Murray has (like myself) enjoyed the advantage of a
severely intellectualistic training in the classical philosophy of
Oxford University, and in its premier college, Balliol. The aim of this
training is to instil into the best minds the country produces an
adamantine conviction that philosophy has made no progress since
Aristotle. It costs about £50,000 a year, but on the whole it is
singularly successful. Its effect upon capable minds possessed of common
sense is to produce that contempt for pure intellect which distinguishes
the British nation from all others, and ensures the practical success of
administrators selected by an examination so gloriously irrelevant to