Whatever, then, a man's mental and moral habit might be, it would
perforce have affinity to some essence or other; his life would
revolve about some congenial ideal object; he would find some sorts of
form, some types of relation, more visible, beautiful, and satisfying
than others. Mr. Russell happens to have a mathematical genius, and to
find comfort in laying up his treasures in the mathematical heaven. It
would be highly desirable that this temperament should be more common;
but even if it were universal it would not reduce mathematical essence
to a product of human attention, nor raise the "beauty" of mathematics
to part of its essence. I do not mean to suggest that Mr. Russell
attempts to do the latter; he speaks explicitly of the _value_ of
mathematical study, a point in ethics and not directly in logic; yet
his moral philosophy is itself so much assimilated to logic that the
distinction between the two becomes somewhat dubious; and as Mr.
Russell will never succeed in convincing us that moral values are
independent of life, he may, quite against his will, lead us to
question the independence of essence, with that blind gregarious drift
of all ideas, in this direction or in that, which is characteristic of
human philosophising.
III. THE CRITIQUE OF PRAGMATISM
The time has not yet come when a just and synthetic account of what is
called pragmatism can be expected of any man.
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