facts, and the latter because of danger to values. For however the creative thinker may seek to align completely the recalcitrant facts, a residuum always escapes ("the whip of reason"). Moreover, even though the facts be disposed in procrustean fashion, the rigid monism implicit is found to be so menacing to values that the final result is rejected as imperiling the social order, whether it be the absolute monism of philosophy or of religion or of science. Thus reason, at first in harmony with the requirements of the social order and allied with it, in the end becomes suspect and its product is rejected as hostile. New attention to facts for the saving of values then leads in the direction of pluralism, which finally issues in the chaos of utter free play and is rejected in turn as equally menacing to the social order.
The history of thought exhibits in fact just this oscillation between monism and pluralism as two extremes.[1] And the nature of man would seem to insure the continuance of this pendulous swing in the further development of his thought. For the monistic tendency of reason and the pluralistic direction required by facts and values must operate under the requirements of the social order and so produce a process which apparently is without end. Under the impelling force of reason's demands the philosopher may construct a system and then turn to reconciling it with facts and values. Or, with primary attention to these facts and values, he may deny the obligation of complete organization and forego the advantages of thoroughgoing reason. In either case his mind is moving under the limitations imposed by regard for the welfare of society, whether it be at the end or at the beginning of his creative thought. Accordingly, all systems and all directions in the history of thought exhibit this ever constant control by the social order; to imperil this order is to become suspect and to be repudiated regardless of the merits of truth involved. Thus society not only acts as a determinant in general for man's view of life and reality, but it deter-
- ↑ Constructive thinkers are necessarily monistic in intention; hence notice of their systems predominates in the history of thought. Pluralism, on the other hand, represents an outcome so distressing to systematic thought that it has had less favor for the most part; its chief service has been that of an agent of protest. For some timely observations on the work of constructive thinkers see A. W. Benn, History of English Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century, 1900, vol. I. preface, p. x.
