Page:Humanism; philosophical essays (IA cu31924029012171).pdf/20
famed in history and literature, and to denominate Humanism the attitude of thought which I know to be habitual in William James and in myself, which seems to be sporadic and inchoate in many others, and which is destined, I believe, to win the widest popularity. There would indeed be no flavour of extravagance and paradox about this last suggestion, were it not that the professional study of Philosophy has so largely fallen into the hands of recluses who have lost all interest in the practical concerns of humanity, and have rendered philosophy like unto themselves, abstruse, arid, abstract and abhorrent. But in itself there is no reason why this should be the character of philosophy. The final theory of life ought to be every man's concern, and if we can dispel the notion that the tiresome technicalities of philosophy lead to nothing of the least practical interest, it yet may be. There is ground, then, for the hope that the study of a humaner philosophy may prove at least as profitable and enjoyable as that of the 'humaner' letters.
In all but name Humanism has long been in existence. Years ago I described one of its most precious texts, William James's Will to Believe,[1] as a "declaration of the independence of the concrete whole of man with all his passions and emotions unexpurgated, directed against the cramping rules and regulations by which the Brahmins of the academic caste are tempted to impede the free expansion of human life," and as "a most salutary. doctrine to preach to a biped oppressed by many. -ologies,' like modern man, and calculated to allay his growing doubts whether he has a responsible personality and a soul and conscience of his own, and is not a mere phantasmagoria of abstractions, a transient complex of shadowy formulas that Science calls the laws of nature."" Its great lesson was, I held, that "there are not really
- ↑ In reviewing it for Mind in October 1897 (N.S. No. 24, p. 548).