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After all, the American mind was conditioned by one of the noblest and most formidable structures of analysis ever devised, Calvinist theology, and any intellect so shaped was bound to have certain vulnerability to secular ideology ever after. There have been hedgehogs throughout American history who have attempted to endow America with an all-inclusive creed, to translate Americanism into a set of binding propositions, and to construe the national tradition in terms of one or another ultimate law.
畢竟，美國人的思維方式深受加爾文派神學的影響，這種神學是有史以來人類創造的最崇高、最令人敬畏的分析體系之一，而如此形成的思維方式一定始終容易受到世俗意識形態體系的攻擊。那些所謂“刺猬”貫穿于美國整個歷史，他們企圖賦予美國一個萬能的信條，把美國精神轉變成一系列必須遵循的主張，用一種或另一種最終規律來解釋國家的傳統。
Yet most of the time, Americans have foxily mistrusted abstract rationalism and rigid priori doctrine. Our national faith has been not in propositions but in processes. In its finest hours the United States has, so to speak,risen above ideology. It has not permitted dogma to falsify reality, imprison experience, or narrow the spectrum of choice. This skepticism about ideology has been a primary source of the social inventiveness which has marked so much of development. The most vital American social thought has been to empirical, practical, pragmatic. America, in consequence, has been at its most characteristic a nation of innovation and experiment.
然而，大多數美國人對抽象的理性主義和僵硬的先驗理論持明智的不信任態度。我們的民族不相信一成不變的終極目標，而忠誠于發展中探求。在她處于最佳時期時，美國可以說超越了所有的意識形態體系，她不允許由于信仰教條的原因使現實被曲使人們的實踐受到束縛，使選擇的范圍變得十分狹小。這種對意識形態體系的懷疑是社會創造力的首要源泉。最重要的美國社會思想是經驗主義、實踐主義和實用主義。因此，美國最顯著的特點是創新和嘗試。
Pragmatism is no more wholly devoid of abstractions than ideology is wholly devoid of experience. The dividing line comes when abstractions and experience collide and one must give way to the other. At this point the pragmatist rejects abstractions and, the ideologist rejects experience. The early history of the republic illustrates the difference. The American Revolution was a pragmatic effort conducted in terms of certain general values. The colonists fought for independence in terms of British ideals of civil freedom and representative government; they rebelled against British rule essentially for British reasons. The ideals of American independence found expression in the classical documents which accompanied the birth of the nation:the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
實用主義并不完全排斥抽象概念，就像意識形態體系不完全排斥經驗一樣。當抽象概念與經驗發生沖突，必須做出取舍時，區別就顯現出來了。在這一點上，實用主義者拒絕抽象概念，而意識形態主絕經驗，共和國的早期歷史闡釋了這種差，美國獨立戰爭是在某些普遍價值指導下的實用主義的嘗試。殖民者們為獨立而戰所根據的是英國的公民自由和代議制政府的理想；他們起義反抗英國人是用了英國的理由。美國獨立的理想可以在伴隨國家產生的權威文獻中找到表述：獨立宣言、憲法以及權利法案。
