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.