Note 167 — Chapter IV · PRAGMATISM AND HUMAN ACTIVITY

By action in this chapter and elsewhere in this book, I do not mean the mere exhibition or expenditure of physical energy. I mean human activity in general, inclusive of the highest manifestations of this activity, such as the search for truth, contemplation, belief, creative activity of one kind or another, and so on. There is no belief and no contemplation that is not practical as well as theoretical, no truth that fails to shape and to mould the life of the person who entertains it. I quite agree with Maeterlinck, and with Bergson and others, that the soul is to some extent limited by the demands of action and speech, and by the duties and the conventions of social life, but I still believe in the action test for contemplations and thoughts and beliefs and ideas, however lofty. It is only the thoughts that we can act out, that we can consciously act upon in our present human life, and that we can persuade others to act upon, that are valuable to ourselves and to humanity. It is to their discredit that so many men and so many thinkers entertain, and give expression to, views about the universe which renders their activities as agents and as thinkers and as seekers quite inexplicable.