Forword - Principles of Philosophy

1.176-179      G-c.1893-5 (c.1896)

  176. The universally and justly lauded parallel which Kant
draws between a philosophical doctrine and a piece of
architecture has excellencies which the beginner in philosophy might
easily overlook; and not the least of these is its recognition of
the cosmic character of philosophy. I use the word "cosmic"
because cosmicus is Kant's own choice; but I must say I think
secular or public would have approached nearer to the
expression of his meaning. Works of sculpture and painting can be
executed for a single patron and must be by a single artist. A
painting always represents a fragment of a larger whole. It is
broken at its edges. It is to be shut up in a room and admired
by a few. In such a work individuality of thought and feeling
is an element of beauty. But a great building, such as alone
can call out the depths of the architect's soul, is meant for the
whole people, and is erected by the exertions of an army
representative of the whole people. It is the message with which
an age is charged, and which it delivers to posterity.
Consequently, thought characteristic of an individual -- the piquant,
the nice, the clever -- is too little to play any but the most
subordinate role in architecture. If anybody can doubt whether
this be equally true of philosophy, I can but recommend to
him that splendid third chapter of the Methodology, in the
Critic of the Pure Reason.
  177. To the cosmological or secular character of philosophy
(to which, as closely connected, Kant with his unfailing
discernment joins the circumstance that philosophy is a thing
that has to grow by the fission of minute parts and not by
accretion) is due the necessity of planning it out from the
beginning. Of course, every painting likewise has its composition;
but composition is not a very weighty problem, except in that
kind of painting which is accessory to architecture, or is, at
any rate, very public in its appeal. Indeed historical painting
is one of those exceptions which go to prove the rule that in

 * Apparently a foreword to a volume of the Principles of Philosophy, c. 1896.
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works which aim at being secular, rather than individualistic,
the preliminary business of planning is particularly important
and onerous.
  178. And the reason is very plain and simple. The
instincts of the lower animals answer their purposes much more
unerringly than a discursive understanding could do. But for
man discourse of reason is requisite, because men are so
intensively individualistic and original that the instincts,
which are racial ideas, become smothered in them. A
deliberate logical faculty, therefore, has in man to take their place;
and the sole function of this logical deliberation is to grind off
the arbitrary and the individualistic character of thought.
Hence, wherever the arbitrary and the individualistic is
particularly prejudicial, there logical deliberation, or discourse
of reason, must be allowed as much play as possible.
  179. That is why philosophy ought to be deliberate and
planned out; and that is why, though pitchforking articles
into a volume is a favorite and easy method of bookmaking,
it is not the one which Mr. Peirce has deemed to be the most
appropriate to the exposition of the principles of philosophy;
so that, instead of making up this book by a collection of his
old papers with additions, as he was urged to do, he has
preferred to write it entirely anew, as if he had never before set
pen to paper.*

  * However, for the only philosophical work Peirce ever completed, The Grand
Logic, the "pitchfork " method was used. The editors, of course, were compelled
to "pitchfork," though they have tried to do it according to a plan,
suggested by the classifications contained in the present book.