The New York herald., 1922-06-11
THE NEW IDEAILSM. BY May Sin
clair. The Macmillan Company.
II T is Enthusiastically with a sense
of going back to a first love

that Miss Sinclair returns for
bit to the problems of philosophy.
Long before she had made a niche
for herself among the highly gifted
modern novelists she had the temper
ity to write essays in philosophy.
Any one who was fortunate enough
to have been introduced to the sub
ject under the guidance of one of
those rare teachers who look upon
it more in the nature of a thrilling
intellectual adventure than as a
species of mental drudgery will be
likely to support the guess that of
such was Miss Sinclair. She pIunges
into the ancient dilemmas of episte-
mology and metaphysics with some
thing of the joy of dive into a cool,
blue sea on summers day. Her
characterizations are at times James,
esque.
There's at least one important
thing to be said for those old friends
of the classroom. They do not desert
enigmatic, as inviting toward dialec-
teal combat as ever. You feel that
they viii be there until the end of
time. And meanwhile they offer a
permanent possibility of intellectual
sport once you get the taste for it.
To Miss Sinclair philosophy is sheer
fun
This is not TO say that she takes
IL lightly. She doesn't. She is con-
vinced that her side in an old dispute
is in rather a bad way and comes
forward with plans for what might
be called a sort of strategicaI retreat.
The old positions of idealism will
have to be abandoned. The Kantian
categories and the HegeIian dialectic
are out of date. 1t is time for taking
new ground. II is time to recon-
struct theories of space and time.
Miss Sinclair. in admiring recog-
milton of the work of Bertrand Rus
sell. Prof. Whitehead and Prof. Alex
ander. comedies that realism is ten
times more formidable to-day than
it was in 1917 (Which gives one the
sense that things really are moving
in philosophy at a rapid rate). And
the central issue is space and time.
or. as newer theories have ii. space
time. This is the crux of the matter.
Ideaiism stands or falls on it's ability
to give a sounder account of reality
than the space-time of realism. And
this is by no means an easy under
taking. for "the new realism is lit
orally the first philosophic system in
which space and time have been
taken seriously" Indeed, to Miss
Sinclair the present seems the first
time that realism has actually ap-
peared as a system.
To showing just how seriously the
realists do take space and time and
how they take it she devotes nearly
two-thirds of her essay. The realist
of course looks upon mind as not an
ultimate or unique thing at all. but
something that came along later.
Time and space exist quite without
il and independent of it. Space and
time are not two entities. but aspects
of the same entity. Their division
into distinct realities or categories
came about through unwarranted
distractions. Space-time is the ulti-
mate stuff of the universe. including
mind. From it all things emerge.
THE world is besotten by time out
OF space"
This. as Miss Sinclair sees il, gives
rise to the anthony: "One instant
of time covers all the points of space.
That is to say, all the points of space
will be repeated. will occur all over
again at each successive instant of
time. Thus time. so far from reeeiv-
ing continuity from space. will poison
all space with the successiveness of
repetition. In the same way. any
one point covered by all instants will
be indistinguishable in its time char
aCter from any other point equally
covered by all instants. and any in
slant will be indistinsuishable i'm its
space character from any other in
stant. since all instants cover all
f.a.N g..