New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-03-05
THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
AUTHOR OF THE LIMITS
OF EVOLUTION"

q notice OF the philosophical views presented in my
recent volume The Limits OF Evolution. and
Other Essays" published by the Macmillan Com
pany. The reviewer shows great candor. sufficient
learning and unusual hospitality 10 new IDEAS
In serious regions. I indeed glad 10 have any
work OF mine the object Of a criticism marked by
many Of the qualities essential TO the true
and enlightening judge. But the one duty OF
reviewer that precedes all others is 10 apprehend
his author correctly and correctly represent TO his
readers the views the author sets forth; ana as
with the best intentions. my reviewer mas some
how managed 10 misapprehend in several es-
sental matters, I must beg enough space IN your
columns to put myself right
First Of all though ! cannot imagine why, the
reviewer sets out with the statement to me- sim
ply astounding so far as it concerns myself. that
-both Dr. Royce and DR. Howison are 'monists
and ideaists' THE single quotation is mine.l
should have supposed that if any one thing
blazed out more than another in my book, II
would be the fact that # assails all monism, Of
every sort and fashion and takes for its task the
supplanting of It by system Of pluralisn ldealist
indeed ] monst, not at all-not in any sense
until one comes the very subordinate question,
Are there two kinds Of substantive reality mind
and matter7-is there a dualism OF worlds. phys-
cal and mental. each existing independently OF
the other. is all reality translatable into the
existence Of conscious selves and the derivatve
existence Of their contained experiences? In an
swer to this question. do indeed say there is but
kind of being and that mental. But this Is one
of the characteristic tenets common TO all systems
of idealisn: the historic nomenclature or PM
losophy II has never borne the name or Inonlsrn-
The contrast between Monism and Pluralism Is
concerned with the theory Of ultimate Tor primary
reality. 4 pluralist Cand it is a pluralist that
ami doesn't in the least believe Cas the reviewer
apparently does) the ultimate interest Of phi
losophy is find the one Reality that lies behind
the innumerable diverse phenomena Of the world
Pluralis is precisely the stubborn denial that the
ultimate reality is any such One and Sole Being.
IN which every other being is but fragmentary
<,.sa- wit hTlT
reality The pluralist maintains. on the contrary.
that this pretender The Absolute" this asserted
one and All is illusion of false speculation.
arising from confoundng the Real with the empty
and meaningless result Of persistent higher ana
higher abstraction The fundamental issue in
philosophy just this: Is that which is ultimately
real One or is IT Many?-or. still less ambiguously
Are there many primary and underived real beings,
OF there only one? Here it is that the pluraist
divides from the monist: and he divides implac-
ably Between these contestants the conflict must
be a outrance. The issue is at core the issue
between a moral order (Which cannot be unless
there are many independent agents. the true ana
spontaneous causes Of their own acts and an order
simply metaphysical. natural. dominated by the
determnism issuing from an all-encompassing Sole
Efficiency
OF course. Pluralism, simply such, might mean
universal chaos. disorder and unreason. 1t has
not infreduently been so interpreted by its advo-
Gates. But it has necessary character Of this
unruy sort. Idealistic Pluralism is distinguished
will by the doctrine that the many Primary
Realities when we discover them in their secret
and bottom foundations, are all rational intell-
fences and that they therefore spontaneously con-
stitute not indeed any Unit in which their free
dom would be swamped and crushed, but a rational
Union or Harmony which is therefore indie
structible as they This is the conception at
the basis Of American ideal Of the state as
Federal Nation and might well he represented
by our national motto. not plures alb uno but e
puribus unum. II is just here that part from
DR. Royce and from the large and justly famous
historic company Of thinkers from whose lines he
sets forth his battle array-from Plato, from
Aristotle from ACuinas. from Spinoza, and, above
all from HegeI Monists OF degree or another
all these celebrated minds have been: monist with
them is DR.. Royce; they are a proud and weighty
company in fact OF resstless weight If YOU
grant them their fundamental assumption-that
the highest and controlling category OF true
thought is the category Of Cause construed as
Efficient Causation.
F2,t how the reviewer should have lodged in
their camp-even IN any quarter Of it's mys-
terv I must leave him TO explain if he can.
had supposed that my Preface had put opposi-
ton to every sort Of monism beyond the chance
OF mistake. and that had rendered my position
as Rational Harmonic Pluralist as clear as
language could possibly make it. Your readers
will surely that have done so. il they Will
take the trouble read pages viii-xii. where
they can hardly be SC inattertivc TO miss the
words Instead of any rnonism. these essays put
forward a Pluralsm they advocate eternal or
metaphysical world Of many minds. all alike pos
sessng personal initiative. real sef-directon- in
stead of ali-predestinating single Mind that
alone has real free-agcncy.'
In the second place the reviewer. in spite 81 his
evidently wide reading in philosophy has man
aged entirely misapprehend the meaning Of my
phrase, the eternal reality OF the Individual His
mistake in this connection can readily under
stand for it mistake common even among
readers whose philosophical training ought make
81 impossible Cnlucl1ly. popular language en-
gIoys eternal denote the total possible com
pass time. meaning BY it everlasting. both
backward and forward We fond Of hitting
this of in the phrase from all eternity that is
from a past date infinitely remote" In this
sense people. however wrongly. are In the habit Of
fancvine even the being Of God essentially
temporal existenco. only dnerenced from our tran
sient life Of the senses. hemmed in betwixt birth
and death by lasting from forever IN the past 20
forever in the future But not does the exact
philosopher understand eternal" To him the
word either mean something that temporal"
does not and not, or else II must be discarded
from his philosophical vocabulary as superhuous.
And Just the temporal and the eternal are,
even nv common usage. coutrasted. he justly says
that the word eternal must by him be taken to
stand for what temporal doesn't and cannot stand
for; namely the Interchangeable Ground presupposed
by the changing temporal the necessary as against
the contingent; the independent against the
dependent; the primary against the derivative:
the self-existent against that which exists in
and through II; the genuine cause. the causa sui
as against that which IS after all, nothing but
effect however it may be tied together by real
causation in the unrupturable chain of antecedent
and consequent: the noumenon as against the phe-
noenon; or in short the thing in itself against
the thing in other. That IS say, relation
tween the eternal and the temporal is not ard
cannot be. only another Of the temporal rela-
ton The relation is Just OF pure reason and
IS in fact, sui geners; the eternal does not
precede the temporal by date but only in logic: II