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but to whom logic is all Greek; the second, inflated with current notions of logic, but prodigiously informed about the N.A.; the third, a trained man of science who, in the modern spirit, has added to his specialty an exact theoretical and practical study of reasoning and the elements of thought, so that psychol[og]ists account him a sort of psychologist, and mathematicians a sort of mathematician.
I should, then, show how the first would have learned that nothing has any kind of value in itself, but only in its place in the whole production to which it appertains; and that an individual soul
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with its petty agitations and calamities, is a zero except as filling its infinitesimal place; accepting his little utility as his entire treasure. He will see that though his God would not "really" (in a certain sense,) adapt means to ends, it is nevertheless quite true that there are relations among phenomena which finite intelligence must interpret, and truly interpret, as such adaptations; and he will macarize himself for his own bitterest griefs, and bless God for the law of growth, with all the fighting it imposes upon him,—Evil, i.e. what it is man's duty to fight, being one of the major perfections of the Universe. In that fight,
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he will endeavour to perform just the duty laid upon him, and no more. He will not worry because the Universes were not constructed to suit the scheme of some silly scold.
The context of this, I must leave the reader to imagine. It is strictly pertinent. I am exceeding the limits of my article. I will only add that the third man considering the complex process of self-control, will see that the Hypothesis, irresistible though it be to first intention yet needs Probation; and that though an infinite being is not tied down to any consistency, yet man, like any other animal,
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is gifted with power of understanding sufficient for the conduct of life. This brings him, for testing the Hypothesis, to taking his stand upon Pragmatism, which implies faith in common-sense and in instinct, though only as they issue from the cupel-furnace of measured criticism. In short, he will say that the N.A. is the First Stage of a scientific inquiry, resulting in a Hypothesis of the very highest plausibility, whose ultimate test must lie in its value in the self-controlled growth of man's conduct of life.
C.S. Peirce Milford, Pennsylvania
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A NEGLECTD
There is a certain agreeable occupation of mind which from its having no distinctive name I infer is not as commonly practised as it deserves to be; for indulged with moderation, as for say through some 5 or 6 percent of one's waking minutes it is most refreshing. Because it involves no purpose save that of casting aside all active purpose, I have sometimes been half inclined to call it reverie with some qualification; but being for a frame of thought so antipodal to vacancy and dreaminess any such designation would be too excruciating a misfit. It is Pure Play. Now Play, we all know, implies a lively exercise of one's powers. Pure Play has no rules, except this very law of liberty. It bloweth where it listeth. It has no purpose but recreation. It may take the form of