n to Dr. Royce, and be dupes of his "professional
warning." But the cause of philosophical reform will not be stayed by
him or by them: the world's heart is hungry for higher truth than
idealism can discover, and will be grateful in the end to any
philosophy which shall show what mighty moral conviction, what
unspeakable spiritual invigoration, must needs grow out of
comprehension of the despised Real.

These thoughts are not remote abstractions, up in the air, out of
reach, of no practical value or application; they touch the very life
and soul of Harvard University. For want of such thoughts, many of the
brightest and most intellectual of her students, graduates from the
philosophical courses, go out year after year disbelieving totally in
the possibility of arriving at any fundamental "truth" whatever, even
in ethics. Several years ago, the then President of the Harvard
"Philosophical Club" said in my hearing that he "saw no ground of
moral obligation anywhere in the universe"; and this declaration was
apparently assented to by every one of the fifteen or twenty members
present. This very last summer, a recent graduate told me that he left
college bewildered, depressed, and "disheartened," because he saw
nowhere any ground of rational "conviction" about anything; and that
it was "just the same with all the other fellows"--that is, all his
companions in the study of philosophy. It is time, high time, that
this state of things should be searchingly investigated in the
interest of Harvard University itself, the facts determined, their
causes ascertained. While such a state of things prevails, Harvard
conspicuously fails to be a "philosophical pioneer" except in a
distinctly retrograde direction--conspicuously fails to discharge the
highest service which she owes to the world: namely, to send out her
young graduates well armed beforehand for the battle of life with
clear, strong, and lofty _moral convictions_. Whatever other causes
may exist for the failure, one cause at least is certain--the
self-proved and amazing inability of one of her professors of
philosophy to give an honest or intelligent reception to a thoughtful,
closely reasoned, and earnest plea for philosophical reform in this
very direction, or to criticise it with anything better than
irrelevant and unparliamentary personalities, studied and systematic
misrepresentation both of the plea and of the pleader, and a
demoralizing example of libel, so bitter an