 McCosh's pessimism that the combination of Realism and Theism which underlay the Scottish philosophical enterprise from Hutcheson to Hamilton had foundered within the universities of Scotland, was offset by his hope and belief that the rising cultural and intellectual independence of the United States from its European origins would constitute fertile ground for a new ‘American’ philosophy that would both continue and develop all that was best in the Scottish tradition. He proved to be quite wrong in this speculation. Two philosophies rose to prominence in America. Both of them had some connection with what came to be known a little later as the “college philosophy” that emanated from Scotland via Princeton. One was a version of Idealism that was sympathetic to theism, and the other Pragmatism, which owed something to Reidian ‘Common Sense’. Neither of them, however, was Realist, and both were soon displaced by logical positivism.