Page:Philosophical Review Volume 6.djvu/446

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.
[Vol. VI.

the finite. One must turn to the third movement of the theoretical dialectic, i.e., phenomenalism. There is still present a dualism, that of subject and object. This distinction has arisen in the course of coördination, but is of the utmost importance in both the empirical and rational spheres. Yet the conception of subject and object brings with it great difficulties. The two are related, but it is impossible to see how. The only possible solution of the difficulty is the conversion of the object into the subject. The facts of consciousness, then, become the whole reality. The law of consciousness is the law of things. The great advantage of phenomenalism is that it makes possible complete unification. Yet even here the coördination is not perfect. Whether or not the problems raised are capable of solution, the theoretical dialectic certainly makes a great advance upon the primitive consciousness.—The practical dialectic, which forms the subject of the second article, is concerned with the world of volitions. There is no contradiction with the preceding results, but the standpoint has been changed. As in the theoretical dialectic, the whole course of development is one of coördination, which compensates for lack of intensity by increasing extension. Strong reactions fail us; instead we are offered a great number of reactions. Here, too, the dialectic is its own criterion. Just as scientific truth does not exist before the theoretical coördinations, so the moral order is the result of the practical coördinations. The practical dialectic displays three stages of development, the morality of happiness, the morality of the good, and the morality of obligation. Even at the end, however, there still remains an uncoördinated element, which is, if anything, more prominent than in the theoretical world. The final solution must be left to the religious dialectic.

Grace Neal Dolson.

L'idéalisme scientifique. Parodi. Rev. Ph., XXII, 2, pp. 144-159.

This article is a statement of the system of M. Durand de Gros, who attempts to reconcile science and idealism by showing that science rightly understood is idealistic. Idealism is not opposed to science; it is simply a free and philosophical interpretation of facts and empirical theories. For Durand science and philosophy are inseparable. M. Durand was a student of nearly all the sciences, especially physiology; and in all his researches his aim was to set forth in the union of science and metaphysic the universal method; to establish by indisputable facts the originality, reality, and causative energy of psychic force or mind; and to discover in mind and life the explanation of the universe. Positivism is illogical. It pretends to start from mere phenomena, which alone are real, and the only objects of knowledge; but leaves this position, and finds the truth of these phenomena in a law. Knowledge cannot be limited to mere phenomena, and it is arbitrary and illogical for positivism to pretend that it can. Science and metaphysic are really one, and both by the same instinct have sought, not merely to describe, but to explain things. There is no true