ultimate conviction as a 'theological superstition', or, as I should
prefer to put it with a little more certainty, as a matter of faith. The
alternative is to treat the world as a stupid, and possibly malicious,
bad joke.

_Note_.--It may be thought that something should have been said about
the revolt against authority and tradition which has styled itself
variously 'Pragmatism' and 'Humanism', and also about the recent vogue
of Bergsonianism. I may in part excuse my silence by the plea that both
movements are, in my judgement, already spent forces. If I must say more
than this, I would only remark about Pragmatism that I could speak of it
with more confidence if its representatives themselves were more agreed
as to its precise principles. At present I can discern little agreement
among them about anything except that they all show a great impatience
with the business of thinking things quietly and steadily out, and that
none of them seems to appreciate the importance of the 'critical'
problem. 'Pragmatism' thus seems to me less a definite way of thinking
than a collective name for a series of 'guesses at truth'. Some of the
guesses may be very lucky ones, but I, at least, can hardly take the
claims of unmethodic guessing to be a philosophy very seriously. To
'give and receive argument' appears to me to be of the very essence of
Philosophy. As for M. Bergson, I yield to no one in admiration for his
brilliancy as a stylist and the happiness of many of his illustrations.
But I have always found it difficult to grasp his central idea--if he
really has one--because his whole doctrine has always seemed to me to be
based upon a couple of elementary blunders which will be found in the
opening chapter of his _Données Immédiates de la Conscience_. We are
there called on to reject the intellect in Philosophy on the grounds (1)
that, being originally developed in the services of practical needs, it
can at best tell us how to find our way about among the bodies around