The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Review: Royce - The Spirit of Modern Philosophy

by James Edwin Creighton

The Spirit of Modern Philosophy. An Essay in the Form of Lectures. By Josiah Royce, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Harvard University. Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1892. — pp. xv, 519.

The nucleus of this book was a number of non-technical lectures, in which the author attempted to describe to a circle of friends something in regard to the chief names and problems of modern philosophy. After being enlarged several times, and delivered before public audiences in Harvard University and elsewhere, the author now presents them to the public in book form, under the above title. The work has two main divisions. The first part is devoted to an historical account of the most prominent philosophical thinkers and their problems, from the seventeenth century to the present time. In the second part we have the author's own confession of philosophical faith, which, he claims, is not without originality. His doctrine however he tells us, is no new gospel, but a reconstruction, a synthesis of truths discovered through a study of the history of thought.

The book is written in a simple and non-technical fashion, the style is easy and unconventional, and the treatment of problems, though sometimes diffuse, is always interesting. The artistic biographical sketches, the wealth of illustration and happy quotations, all combine to render it a most attractive work.

Professor Royce frankly confesses, and one feels throughout the entire book, that he is most concerned with those problems of philosophy which deal more immediately with the spiritual interests of mankind. "There is, after all," he writes, "no beauty in a metaphysical system which does not spring from its value as a record of spiritual experience" (p. 23). It is no doubt true that these practical questions regarding our "permanent spiritual possessions" must remain problems to which human reason can never be indifferent. Yet the uncharitable strictures which the author places upon writings where this interest does not appear, sound to me suspiciously like cant, and certainly have no justification. A writer's human interests may be not less true and deep because for the time he resolutely keeps them out of sight.

The author's purpose, in the historical section of his work, is to select certain aspects in the systems of the more prominent thinkers which seem to him to be significant and of permanent value. Each philosopher becomes in his hands "a character in a story, an attitude towards the spiritual concerns of humanity." He carries out this purpose in a manner which leaves scarcely anything to be desired, and one cannot help regretting that the plan of his work did not allow him to include Leibniz. The whole history of modern thought is illuminated and vivified by Professor Royce's brilliant and masterly exposition, from which professional teachers of philosophy may obtain many useful hints. It seems to me, however, that Berkeley has hardly received justice in this sketch. Grandly simple as was his thought, it was yet so deep that it was misunderstood by all the philosophers of his time. And although his system may appear one-sided and incomplete when compared with later expressions of idealism, we have still to remember that they are but fuller developments of that principle which he was the first to emphasize. Two points are dwelt upon in dealing with Kant. First, what we may perhaps call his heroic attitude towards life and the demands of the moral law. Secondly, a truth, the consequences of which Kant perceived himself only dimly; viz. that experience implies a relation to a universal or transcendental ego. The problem of philosophy after Kant is to understand the nature of this Universal Self. In the chapter which deals with "The Rise of the Doctrine of Evolution," the author traces the origin of this theory to that historical movement which the thinkers of the Romantic School were led to undertake through their interest in the affairs of the human spirit. The connection is a very obvious one, although it is one that has not often been pointed out. In the same chapter he has also very justly called attention to the fact that the "return to reality" in our century has not been a return to the outer world of the seventeenth century, but "a return to a world pervaded with the spirit of idealism." Our age has given up the attempt to deduce reality, and has devoted itself to science, yet we must carry with us what we have learned from idealism. The business of science, like that of philosophy, is to discover the laws, the ideas, or rationality of things.

With the tenth lecture begins the constructive part of the work. The author adopts the realistic position of natural science, and seeks to show that its explanations, when pressed to the limit, become involved in paradoxes and contradictions. The theory which he examines is that of the nebular hypothesis, which represents the world as undergoing a continuous process of aggregation, and, as a consequence, constantly suffering loss of energy. To explain how we may conceive this process as without a beginning, Clifford has suggested that going backward from the present condition of the world, at an indefinite past time the molecules which now compose matter were at an infinite distance from each other. This would imply that the world could only exist in its present condition if the molecules of which it is composed were once actually an infinite distance apart. But this lands us in an absurdity. It is therefore impossible the author concludes, to conceive of a continuous process in the same direction going on through infinite time. Therefore the physical world, the world in space and time where such paradoxes are inevitable, is not the truth of things. Although I agree with the conclusion, it does not seem to follow in this case. The author has shown that Clifford's postulate is untenable, but it is yet quite possible that the process of the world maybe "cyclical"; that what appears to us as a straight line, because we see so small a portion of it, may in reality be a segment of a circle.

The eleventh lecture is a reaffirmation of a position which Professor Royce reached some years ago in his Religious Aspects of Philosophy. The conclusion of the first half of the chapter is, "the real world must be a mind or else a group of minds" (p. 368). That there is only one world of ideas, that of the Universal Self, which is inclusive of all finite beings, Professor Royce finds implied in the relation of" meaning "anything beyond our present consciousness. " When what is meant is outside of the moment which means, only a Self inclusive of the moment and its object could complete and so confirm or refute the opinion that the moment contains" (p. 377). If we suppose that there exists some reality beyond our consciousness, say, "a world of spirits," then the truth of any thought of mine will consist in its agreement with this reality. That there must be some relation between the knowing mind and the thing known, that both must somehow form parts of one cosmos, is beyond dispute, but I cannot see that this necessarily implies that they are included in a Universal Consciousness, or even that such a consciousness exists. Such a reflective consciousness is not necessary to constitute truth. The twelfth lecture is the most important and original part of the book. He here applies his idealistic theory to the problems of cosmology and freedom, and the treatment is highly suggestive. Facts which belong to the world in space and time, and to which we apply the categories, he calls the "World of Description." The world of spiritual facts on the other hand which is not subject to the categories of the external world, he denominates the "World of Appreciation." "What I see and describe is simply the physical, the phenomenal aspect of the inner and appreciative life." The mind does not influence the body, but the body is only a translation of the mind into the describable language of space. It is to be hoped that the author will work out the results which are only indicated here with more fulness. His solution of the problem of Freedom is, in the condensed form in which it is here presented, very difficult to understand. "As parts of an eternal order we do not indeed choose this thing or that in time, but help to choose out and out what world this fatal temporal world shall eternally be and have been." These seem like words without meaning, but it is doubtless unfair to criticise such a general indication of position. The last chapter of the book is a discussion of the moral order of the universe, and the rational attitude towards life. Professor Royce is no shallow or sentimental optimist, who shuts his eyes to the real evil of the world. The only optimism worthy of a brave man is that which recognizes sin and evil as a part of the real world, and yet wills that these shall be overcome, with a faith that the Infinite Spirit upon whom the world depends is rational. In conclusion, I would like to call attention to the excellent workmanship and attractive form of this book, which add not a little to its charm.

J. E. Creighton.