Pragmatism — Lecture 8: Pragmatism and Religion, part 2

Does our act then CREATE the world's salvation so far as it makes room for itself, so far as it leaps into the gap?

Does it create, not the whole world's salvation of course, but just so much of this as itself covers of the world's extent?

Here I take the bull by the horns, and in spite of the whole crew of rationalists and monists, of whatever brand they be, I ask WHY NOT?

Our acts, our turning-places, where we seem to ourselves to make ourselves and grow, are the parts of the world to which we are closest, the parts of which our knowledge is the most intimate and complete.

Why should we not take them at their face-value?

Why may they not be the actual turning-places and growing-places which they seem to be, of the world--why not the workshop of being, where we catch fact in the making, so that nowhere may the world grow in any other kind of way than this?

Irrational!

we are told.

How can new being come in local spots and patches which add themselves or stay away at random, independently of the rest?

There must be a reason for our acts, and where in the last resort can any reason be looked for save in the material pressure or the logical compulsion of the total nature of the world?

There can be but one real agent of growth, or seeming growth, anywhere, and that agent is the integral world itself.

It may grow all-over, if growth there be, but that single parts should grow per se is irrational.

But if one talks of rationality and of reasons for things, and insists that they can't just come in spots, what KIND of a reason can there ultimately be why anything should come at all?

Talk of logic and necessity and categories and the absolute and the contents of the whole philosophical machine-shop as you will, the only REAL reason I can think of why anything should ever come is that someone wishes it to be here.

It is DEMANDED, demanded, it may be, to give relief to no matter how small a fraction of the world's mass.

This is living reason, and compared with it material causes and logical necessities are spectral things.

In short the only fully rational world would be the world of wishing-caps, the world of telepathy, where every desire is fulfilled instanter, without having to consider or placate surrounding or intermediate powers.

This is the Absolute's own world.

He calls upon the phenomenal world to be, and it IS, exactly as he calls for it, no other condition being required.

In our world, the wishes of the individual are only one condition.

Other individuals are there with other wishes and they must be propitiated first.

So Being grows under all sorts of resistances in this world of the many, and, from compromise to compromise, only gets organized gradually into what may be called secondarily rational shape.

We approach the wishing-cap type of organization only in a few departments of life.

We want water and we turn a faucet.

We want a kodak-picture and we press a button.

We want information and we telephone.

We want to travel and we buy a ticket.

In these and similar cases, we hardly need to do more than the wishing--the world is rationally organized to do the rest.

But this talk of rationality is a parenthesis and a digression.

What we were discussing was the idea of a world growing not integrally but piecemeal by the contributions of its several parts.

Take the hypothesis seriously and as a live one.

Suppose that the world's author put the case to you before creation, saying: "I am going to make a world not certain to be saved, a world the perfection of which shall be conditional merely, the condition being that each several agent does its own 'level best.'

I offer you the chance of taking part in such a world.

Its safety, you see, is unwarranted.

It is a real adventure, with real danger, yet it may win through.

It is a social scheme of co-operative work genuinely to be done.

Will you join the procession?

Will you trust yourself and trust the other agents enough to face the risk?"

Should you in all seriousness, if participation in such a world were proposed to you, feel bound to reject it as not safe enough?

Would you say that, rather than be part and parcel of so fundamentally pluralistic and irrational a universe, you preferred to relapse into the slumber of nonentity from which you had been momentarily aroused by the tempter's voice?

Of course if you are normally constituted, you would do nothing of the sort.

There is a healthy-minded buoyancy in most of us which such a universe would exactly fit.

We would therefore accept the offer--"Top!

und schlag auf schlag!"

It would be just like the world we practically live in; and loyalty to our old nurse Nature would forbid us to say no. The world proposed would seem 'rational' to us in the most living way.

Most of us, I say, would therefore welcome the proposition and add our fiat to the fiat of the creator.

Yet perhaps some would not; for there are morbid minds in every human collection, and to them the prospect of a universe with only a fighting chance of safety would probably make no appeal.

There are moments of discouragement in us all, when we are sick of self and tired of vainly striving.

Our own life breaks down, and we fall into the attitude of the prodigal son.

We mistrust the chances of things.

We want a universe where we can just give up, fall on our father's neck, and be absorbed into the absolute life as a drop of water melts into the river or the sea.

The peace and rest, the security desiderated at such moments is security against the bewildering accidents of so much finite experience.

Nirvana means safety from this everlasting round of adventures of which the world of sense consists.

The hindoo and the buddhist, for this is essentially their attitude, are simply afraid, afraid of more experience, afraid of life.

And to men of this complexion, religious monism comes with its consoling words: "All is needed and essential--even you with your sick soul and heart.

All are one with God, and with God all is well.

The everlasting arms are beneath, whether in the world of finite appearances you seem to fail or to succeed."

There can be no doubt that when men are reduced to their last sick extremity absolutism is the only saving scheme.

Pluralistic moralism simply makes their teeth chatter, it refrigerates the very heart within their breast.

So we see concretely two types of religion in sharp contrast.

Using our old terms of comparison, we may say that the absolutistic scheme appeals to the tender-minded while the pluralistic scheme appeals to the tough.

Many persons would refuse to call the pluralistic scheme religious at all.

They would call it moralistic, and would apply the word religious to the monistic scheme alone.

Religion in the sense of self-surrender, and moralism in the sense of self-sufficingness, have been pitted against each other as incompatibles frequently enough in the history of human thought.

We stand here before the final question of philosophy.

I said in my fourth lecture that I believed the monistic-pluralistic alternative to be the deepest and most pregnant question that our minds can frame.

Can it be that the disjunction is a final one?

that only one side can be true?

Are a pluralism and monism genuine incompatibles?

So that, if the world were really pluralistically constituted, if it really existed distributively and were made up of a lot of eaches, it could only be saved piecemeal and de facto as the result of their behavior, and its epic history in no wise short-circuited by some essential oneness in which the severalness were already 'taken up' beforehand and eternally 'overcome'?

If this were so, we should have to choose one philosophy or the other.

We could not say 'yes, yes' to both alternatives.

There would have to be a 'no' in our relations with the possible.

We should confess an ultimate disappointment: we could not remain healthy-minded and sick-minded in one indivisible act.

Of course as human beings we can be healthy minds on one day and sick souls on the next; and as amateur dabblers in philosophy we may perhaps be allowed to call ourselves monistic pluralists, or free-will determinists, or whatever else may occur to us of a reconciling kind.

But as philosophers aiming at clearness and consistency, and feeling the pragmatistic need of squaring truth with truth, the question is forced upon us of frankly adopting either the tender or the robustious type of thought.

In particular THIS query has always come home to me: May not the claims of tender-mindedness go too far?

May not the notion of a world already saved in toto anyhow, be too saccharine to stand?

May not religious optimism be too idyllic?

Must ALL be saved?

Is NO price to be paid in the work of salvation?

Is the last word sweet?

Is all 'yes, yes' in the universe?

Doesn't the fact of 'no' stand at the very core of life?

Doesn't the very 'seriousness' that we attribute to life mean that ineluctable noes and losses form a part of it, that there are genuine sacrifices somewhere, and that something permanently drastic and bitter always remains at the bottom of its cup?

I can not speak officially as a pragmatist here; all I can say is that my own pragmatism offers no objection to my taking sides with this more moralistic view, and giving up the claim of total reconciliation.

The possibility of this is involved in the pragmatistic willingness to treat pluralism as a serious hypothesis.

In the end it is our faith and not our logic that decides such questions, and I deny the right of any pretended logic to veto my own faith.

I find myself willing to take the universe to be really dangerous and adventurous, without therefore backing out and crying 'no play.'

I am willing to think that the prodigal-son attitude, open to us as it is in many vicissitudes, is not the right and final attitude towards the whole of life.

I am willing that there should be real losses and real losers, and no total preservation of all that is.

I can believe in the ideal as an ultimate, not as an origin, and as an extract, not the whole.

When the cup is poured off, the dregs are left behind forever, but the possibility of what is poured off is sweet enough to accept.

As a matter of fact countless human imaginations live in this moralistic and epic kind of a universe, and find its disseminated and strung-along successes sufficient for their rational needs.

There is a finely translated epigram in the greek anthology which admirably expresses this state of mind, this acceptance of loss as unatoned for, even tho the lost element might be one's self: "A shipwrecked sailor, buried on this coast, Bids you set sail.

Full many a gallant bark, when we were lost, Weathered the gale."

Those puritans who answered 'yes' to the question: Are you willing to be damned for God's glory?

were in this objective and magnanimous condition of mind.

The way of escape from evil on this system is NOT by getting it 'aufgehoben,' or preserved in the whole as an element essential but 'overcome.'

It is by dropping it out altogether, throwing it overboard and getting beyond it, helping to make a universe that shall forget its very place and name.

It is then perfectly possible to accept sincerely a drastic kind of a universe from which the element of 'seriousness' is not to be expelled.

Whoso does so is, it seems to me, a genuine pragmatist.

He is willing to live on a scheme of uncertified possibilities which he trusts; willing to pay with his own person, if need be, for the realization of the ideals which he frames.

What now actually ARE the other forces which he trusts to co-operate with him, in a universe of such a type?

They are at least his fellow men, in the stage of being which our actual universe has reached.

But are there not superhuman forces also, such as religious men of the pluralistic type we have been considering have always believed in?

Their words may have sounded monistic when they said "there is no God but God"; but the original polytheism of mankind has only imperfectly and vaguely sublimated itself into monotheism, and monotheism itself, so far as it was religious and not a scheme of class-room instruction for the metaphysicians, has always viewed God as but one helper, primus inter pares, in the midst of all the shapers of the great world's fate.

I fear that my previous lectures, confined as they have been to human and humanistic aspects, may have left the impression on many of you that pragmatism means methodically to leave the superhuman out.

I have shown small respect indeed for the Absolute, and I have until this moment spoken of no other superhuman hypothesis but that.

But I trust that you see sufficiently that the Absolute has nothing but its superhumanness in common with the theistic God.

On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.

Now whatever its residual difficulties may be, experience shows that it certainly does work, and that the problem is to build it out and determine it, so that it will combine satisfactorily with all the other working truths.

I cannot start upon a whole theology at the end of this last lecture; but when I tell you that I have written a book on men's religious experience, which on the whole has been regarded as making for the reality of God, you will perhaps exempt my own pragmatism from the charge of being an atheistic system.

I firmly disbelieve, myself, that our human experience is the highest form of experience extant in the universe.

I believe rather that we stand in much the same relation to the whole of the universe as our canine and feline pets do to the whole of human life.

They inhabit our drawing-rooms and libraries.

They take part in scenes of whose significance they have no inkling.

They are merely tangent to curves of history the beginnings and ends and forms of which pass wholly beyond their ken.

So we are tangents to the wider life of things.

But, just as many of the dog's and cat's ideals coincide with our ideals, and the dogs and cats have daily living proof of the fact, so we may well believe, on the proofs that religious experience affords, that higher powers exist and are at work to save the world on ideal lines similar to our own.

You see that pragmatism can be called religious, if you allow that religion can be pluralistic or merely melioristic in type.

But whether you will finally put up with that type of religion or not is a question that only you yourself can decide.

Pragmatism has to postpone dogmatic answer, for we do not yet know certainly which type of religion is going to work best in the long run.

The various overbeliefs of men, their several faith-ventures, are in fact what are needed to bring the evidence in.

You will probably make your own ventures severally.

If radically tough, the hurly-burly of the sensible facts of nature will be enough for you, and you will need no religion at all.

If radically tender, you will take up with the more monistic form of religion: the pluralistic form, with its reliance on possibilities that are not necessities, will not seem to afford you security enough.

But if you are neither tough nor tender in an extreme and radical sense, but mixed as most of us are, it may seem to you that the type of pluralistic and moralistic religion that I have offered is as good a religious synthesis as you are likely to find.

Between the two extremes of crude naturalism on the one hand and transcendental absolutism on the other, you may find that what I take the liberty of calling the pragmatistic or melioristic type of theism is exactly what you require.

The End *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRAGMATISM: A NEW NAME FOR SOME OLD WAYS OF THINKING *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U. S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!

) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties.

Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark.

Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark.

If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy.

You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.

Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U. S.

copyright law.

Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License available with this file or online at www.

gutenberg.

org/license.

Section 1.

General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg electronic works 1. A.

By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement.

If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your possession.

If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1. E.

8. 1. B.

“Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark.

It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.

There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.

See paragraph 1. C below.

There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg electronic works.

See paragraph 1. E below.

1. C.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg electronic works.

Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States.

If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed.

Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg name associated with the work.

You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you share it without charge with others.

1. D.

The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work.

Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change.

If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg work.

The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1. E.

Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: 1. E.

1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed: This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.

You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with this eBook or online at www.

gutenberg.

org.

If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1. E.

2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U. S.

copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges.

If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1. E.

1 through 1. E.

7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1. E.

8 or 1. E.

9. 1. E.

3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1. E.

1 through 1. E.

7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder.

Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1. E.

4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1. E.

5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1. E.

1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg License.

1. E.

6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form.

However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg website (www.

gutenberg.

org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form.

Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph 1. E.

1. 1. E.

7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works unless you comply with paragraph 1. E.

8 or 1. E.

9. 1. E.

8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided that: • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.

The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.

Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns.

Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.

” • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License.

You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1. F.

3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1. E.

9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark.

Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1. F.

1. F.

1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U. S.

copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection.

Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1. F.

2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1. F.

3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees.

YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT

LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.

F.

3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE

TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1. F.

3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from.

If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation.

The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund.

If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.

If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1. F.

4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1. F.

3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1. F.

5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.

If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law.

The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1. F.

6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2.

Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.

It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely available for generations to come.

In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg and future generations.

To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.

gutenberg.

org.

Section 3.

Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.

The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.

S.

federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516, Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.

gutenberg.

org/contact Section 4.

Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment.

Many small donations ( to ,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.

Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements.

We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.

To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.

gutenberg.

org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States.

U.

S.

laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses.

Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.

To donate, please visit: www.

gutenberg.

org/donate.

Section 5.

General Information About Project Gutenberg electronic works Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone.

For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U. S.

unless a copyright notice is included.

Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.

gutenberg.

org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.