New-York tribune., 1919-01-11

tity is based and dependent upon men,
gives his philosophy a thoughtful
analysis, even when she takes excep-
tions to it. She next takes UP Mr..
Bergson's "Vitalism." Of it she says:
l said just now that Vitalism Is a
robust philosophy. 1t is nothing of
the sort. 1t is subtle, exquisite, frag-
lie. To try to analyze it, to break
through that texture of beautiful I'M
agination, is to lay violent hands on
living, palpitating thing that en-
dures only on the condition that you
do not handle it.
Miss Sinclair examines carefully into
the claims of William Jamess Pragma-
tism and Of Humanism as philosophical
systems, saying of them:
They have deserved we'll of philos-
ophy in reminding il of things it is
apt to forget; little things like Will
and action and moral conduct, which
Idealism really renders little or no
account of. But the Universe
is nothing if not ironic. And in the
fate of Pragmatism and Humanism
there is a peculiar and a perfect
irony. They have been taken at their
word; and, as they insisted on put
ting conduct first, and Ethics first, or
Ethics, if anything, little after
conduct, and on ignoring everything
in the Universe that does not square
with conduct they are left,
in consequence of their vast repudia-
tions, without any ethical ground for
Ethics, and therefore without any
ethical ground for conduct at all
Pragmatism wears a Quaker's
l. Il L
its hair. Their quest is not for Ulti-
mate Reality, but for steam engines
and motor cars and synthetic chem
istry.
In taking up "Some Questions of
Psychology" Miss Sinclair examines in
detail the theory of Animism, and to
her own satisfaction demolishes it, She
then investigates the claims of the new
Russell. Her chapter on "The New
Mysticism" is particularly interesting
and deals with the mysticism of the
East, as we'll as with the mysticism oe
the Christian religion.
Miss Sinclair's conclusions are so ex-
ccllent that we must quote some of
them; indeed, we are tempted to quote
at length, because it is difficult to
choose:
Throughout the foregoing meta
physical discussion one point must
have struck the unmetaphysical
reader, as it certainly strikes the
mere writer: that q. good half of the
problems under consideration arose
solely from the Limitations of Ian
guage. Idealists and realists
seem to have suffered most from the
confusion that results. When the
idealist says that the world arises in
consciousness, quite palpably he lies
But whoa the realist says that con-
sciousn s,s arises in the world he is
no nearer to the truth. When he
says that the world exists outside
consciousness he can only mean that
it exists outside his body. When he
says consciousness is q part of his
pluriverse and not the whole, what
he means, or should mean, is that his
body is part of it. Again, when the
idealist says that consciousness Is the
centre Of his universe, again, palpa-
bly,, he lies; not because he has said
too much, but because he has said too
little. To sum up the meta
physical argument that we left be-
hind us: 1t supposes one infinite and
absolute Spirit manifesting itself in
many forms to many finite spirits. 1t
supposes the selves of tho many finite
spirits to receive and to maintain
their reality in and through the one