The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Review: Troglodyte - Riddles of the Sphinx
We have before us in the present work a complete system of philosophy in outline. Its aim is to construct a modern metaphysic on the foundation of the latest results in science. With a firm faith in the possibility and practical value of philosophical investigations, our author nevertheless admits that it is only by its success in explaining the problems of life that philosophy can be justified. "We may claim that, if the scheme of things is rational at all, it should not mock our reason with puzzles that are insoluble. We must assert that either the human reason is competent to solve all the difficulties that human minds can properly feel, or that in all things it is the plaything of an unknowable, unmanageable and inexorable perversity of things" (p. 136). In Book I the author shows that the logical outcome of denying the validity of philosophic thought is scepticism and pessimism. The chapter on 'Agnosticism' is devoted principally to a criticism of Spencer and Kant as the representatives of scientific and epistemological agnosticism respectively. But if agnosticism were true, our author contends, it cannot stop with itself but must pass into scepticism. "If the Unknowable is at the basis of all knowledge, if all things are 'manifestations of the Unknowable,' how can it manifest anything but its unknowableness? If all our explanations terminate in the inconceivable, are they not all illusions?" (p. 56). In the following chapter on 'Scepticism' all the usual arguments for the general invalidity of knowledge are ably presented. Particular attention is given to the inadequacy and inconsistencies of the conceptions forming the first principles of science: Time, Space, Motion, Matter, Force, Causation, Substance, Becoming, Being. The necessary emotional reflex of intellectual scepticism is 'Pessimism,' which is the subject of the concluding chapter of this Book. It is "essentially the theory of the inherent perversity of things, rendering all the aims of life illusory." It denies that anything can be made of life, because life is hopelessly irrational and its conflicting aspects are insuperable. "It takes the main activities of life, the main aims of life which are capable of being desired for their own sake, and shows how in each case: (1) their attainment is impossible; (2) their imperfection is inherent and ineradicable; and (3) the aggravation of these defects is to be looked for in the course of time rather than their amelioration" (p. 97). Happiness, Goodness, Beauty, and Knowledge are each presented as ideals of life and the pessimist's arguments for their impossibility given. Particularly interesting in contrast with the optimism of Spencer's Data of Ethics are the pessimistic conclusions here drawn from the doctrine of Evolution.
Book II discusses the proper methods and data of philosophy in the light of modern science. The one indisputable fact and basis of philosophy is the reality of the Self. Rejecting epistemological and psychological methods because they fail to take account of the historical development of the mind, we find three methods left: (1) the physical or pseudo-metaphysical, which attempts to extend the method of the physical sciences to the solution of ultimate questions; (2) the abstract metaphysical, which attempts to state the whole truth of all reality in terms of thought abstractions; and (3) the true method, the concrete metaphysical, which combines the advantages and avoids the defects of the other two. This agrees with the second in explaining the lower by the higher and with the first in admitting the intrinsic likeness and continuity of all existence (p. 450). We must proceed from the phenomenally real to the ultimately real, thus basing our metaphysics on science and making it concrete. The last two chapters of this Book — "The Metaphysics of Evolution" and "Formulas of the Law of Evolution" — are highly interesting and will repay careful study. In the former the author reaches the conclusion that if the scientific theories of evolution are true, "the prothyle or pure potentiality of the whole phenomenal world implies a prior actuality, i.e. a non-phenomenal cause of its evolution and so a transcendent Deity becomes necessary, of whose purpose the world-process is the working out." The true significance of things lies in their end, and all explanation is ultimately teleological. A process is necessarily finite and so the world, if it is in process, must have a beginning and ending in time. In the latter chapter he proposes as a substitute for the evolutionary formulas of Spencer and von Hartmann: "All real progress concurrently develops both the individual and the social medium. It is a development of the individual in society, and of society through individuals" (p. 218). This formula is tested by its application to the course of evolution in all its principal stages.
In Book III our author applies the principles established to the construction of his own Weltanschauung. Whatever is real is finite. The extended world and space — the world-process and time — all are finite. Time, Becoming, and Evil are the corruptions of Eternity, Being, and Perfection. Eternity is not the negation of Time, but the ideal into which Time is ultimately to pass. Matter is a form of Force. Force implies a sense of effort, hence intelligence and will. An atom is a constant manifestation of divine Force or Will exercised at a definite point. Force implies resistance. The divine Force or God must interact with other ultimate realities, viz. ourselves. The one ultimate reality, God, appears to us as the material world; the other ultimate realities, the Transcendental Egos, appear as our present phenomenal selves. The cosmos of our experience is a stress or interaction between God and the Egos. God is finite, one among the Many, their supreme ruler and aim, and not the One underlying the Many. As the Egos are ultimate realities, God cannot annihilate them; the most that can be done is to bring them into harmony with the Divine Will. The world-process is designed to bring this about. It is the finiteness of the Deity that makes this long and arduous process necessary. Evil is imperfect harmony with the divine will, and as God is not infinite he is not responsible for this resistance and disharmony on the part of others. In order to subdue the resisting Egos which he cannot destroy, the Deity immerses them in Matter, thus reducing them to an all but unconscious state and gradually accustoming them to the order which the divine wisdom has seen to be best. It is the function of matter to repress consciousness. The Transcendental Egos that underlie our phenomenal selves and are at once the basis and end of our development are eternal and immortal. The question of our future life depends upon the relation of the self to the Ego. In so far as the self is spiritually developed, and has attained to its ideal, the Ego, it will persist in the future. Possibly a single Ego may be manifested in several selves and this may explain Sex and Love.
The work closes with an appendix of ten pages on "Free Will and Necessity." We make no attempt at a criticism of details. Doubtless some of the apparent inconsistencies and difficulties are due to the necessary limitations in treating so large a subject in so brief a compass. The author's avowed contempt for epistemology and his uncritical acceptance of individualism seem to us sources of real weakness to the work as a whole. The polemic against Infinity deserves comparison with Locke's attack on Innate Ideas, and it is in this that the work makes its most important contribution to metaphysics. The style is clear, and the careful analysis of contents is a commendable feature of the book. We confess to some repugnance to a philosophical work which appears anonymously and with a fancy title, but we hope that students will not be led by this to neglect such an earnest and careful study of metaphysical problems.
F. C. French.