ypothetical
origins of life are only projected and abstracted aspects
of the central reality of life, which is, and always must be,
personality.

But what is the relation of the philosophy of the complex vision to
that modern tendency of thought which calls itself "pragmatism"
and which also finds in personality its starting-point and centre?
The philosophy of the complex vision seems to detect in the
pragmatic attitude something which is profoundly unpleasing to its
taste. Its own view of the art of life is that it is before everything
else a matter of rhythm and harmony and it cannot help discerning
in "pragmatism" something piece-meal, pell-mell and "hand-to-mouth."
It seems conscious of a certain outrage to its aesthetic
sense in the method and the attitude of this philosophy. The
pragmatic attitude, though it would be unfair to call it superficial,
does not appeal to the philosophy of the complex vision as being
one of the supreme, desperate struggles of the human race to
overcome the resistance of the Sphinx. The philosophy of the
complex vision implies the difficult attainment of an elaborate
harmony. It regards "philosophy" as the most difficult of all
"works of art." What it seems to be suspicious of in pragmatism is
a tendency to seek mediocrity rather than beauty, and a certain
humorous opportunism rather than the quiet of an eternal vision. It
seems to look in vain in "Pragmatism" for that element of the
_impossible_, for that strain of Quixotic faith, in which no high
work of art is found to be lacking. It seems unable to discover in
the pragmatic attitude that "note of tragedy" which the fatality of
human life demands.

It certainly shares with the pragmatic philosophy a tendency to lay
more stress upon the freedom of the will than is usual among
philosophies. But the "will" of the complex vision moves in closer
association with the aesthetic sense than does the "will" of
pragmatism. It is perhaps as a matter of "taste" that pragmatism
proves most unsatisfactory to it. It seems to be conscious of
something in pragmatism, which, though itself perhaps not
precisely "commercial," seems curiously well adapted to a
commercial age. It is aware, in fine, that certain high and
passionate intimations are roused to unmitigated hostility by the
whole pragmatic attitude. And it refuses to outrage these
intimations for the sake of any psychological contentment.

In regard to the particular kind of "truth" champio