and think that some of the deeper motives and convictions which have entered into the substance of Idealism will not receive here the attention which is due them. But it deserves to be said that although Miss Sinclair does dip into the historic stream of philosophical reflection only where it comes pretty much to the surface in the shape of the current and the fashionable discussions, nevertheless her plunge is complete and it is bold. Her discussions are subtle, closely reasoned, not infrequently profound and also vivacious.
A bare outline of the argument is about as follows. From a discussion of the Pan-Psychism of Samuel Butler it emerges that "we cannot explain or account for the most ordinary facts of our life and consciousness without presupposing that we have lived and been conscious before" (p. 22). But as against Butler it is urged that "unless the Individual carried through all his previous experiences some personal identity over and above that of his progenitors, their experience will remain theirs, and be no earthly good to him" (p. 22). Some recognition of the truth of this constitutes the "purified spirit " of psycho-analysis. "The reality that underlies its practice is the breaking of the spell of forgetfulness; the deliverance of the Will-to-live from its bondage to the Unconscious" (p. 9). What then is self, and wherein lies the secret of personal identity? Memory gives us no answer to the question, a thesis which is the outcome of the author's acute discussion of Bergson in Chapter II. The Animism of McDougall is vindicated as against Parallelism, but it appears from an examination both of psychology and of metaphysics that "the universe is not built up from the Life-Force in action upon matter alone; not from Matter itself alone; not from the Individual Self alone; nor from an Unknown and Unknowable alone; nor from Body and Soul alone; nor from Consciousness alone; still less from thought alone that lands you in the barren Absolute" (p. 126). One might suppose then that not anything alone will furnish a clew to the universe, and that Monism is disproved. But not at all. We are to search for a term which will include all of these and everything else. "But, if there were one term that would cover all these terms: Life-Force; Matter; Individual Self; Substance; Thing-in-itself; the Unknown and Unknowable or possible Third; Soul; Consciousness; Thought: the Absolute; one term which, besides covering all these, covers also that which has slipped away from them—Will and Love, that term, could we find it, would stand for the Reality we want. We want a term infinitely comprehensive, and perfectly elastic; and a term that does some modest sacrifice to the Unknown" (p. 126). Before expounding the modest mysticism which is to accomplish this, the author pays her respects to Pragmatism and the New Realism. For these tell her that her quest is meaningless and hopeless. In my judgment these are the two most satisfactory chapters in the book. She succeeds, I believe, in uncovering beneath these philosophies of Pluralism, an implicit appeal to something total and comprehensive. But she errs in supposing that Pragmatism is nothing but the older Utilitarianism come to life again. The motive and texture of Dewey's version of Instrumentalism, quite different from the James-Schiller brand, are not once mentioned. The chapter on the 'New Mysticism' is an
