deduce the categories from the subject it would have been necessary to define the subject which the idealist has consistently omitted to do. The subject has been a bystander, whose familiar presence has gradually assumed the appearance of indispensable necessity. It is, to be sure, the contention of some idealists that it is possible to know necessities only in so far as knowledge itself imposes them. Knowledge, Kant said, must control its objects if it is confidently to assert anything concerning them. But it is to be observed that the necessities of thought are derived by the objective idealist, not from thought as the moral-psychical process of the individual mind, but from thought standardized, from thought so far as true. It is the pragmatist, and not the idealist, who attempts to deduce the categories from the concrete, existent subject; and the idealist is the first to charge him with subjectivism and relativism. The idealist deduces the categories from the subject in so far as conformed to the objective nature of things, and thus, in the last analysis, from that objective nature of things. The actual subject, then, does not impose necessities on nature, but yields to necessities which are dictated to it by something beyond itself. The idealistic version of the categories receives illegitimate support from the fixed disposition in modern times to regard sense as receptive, and thought as creative. While we 'receive' impressions, we are supposed to 'form' ideas. But this is sheer prejudice or verbalism. A body must be perceived in order to be known, and an implication must be thought in order to be known; but there is no more reason or sense in asserting the knowing to be necessary to the being, in the one case than in the other. The general question of the dependence or independence of things known on the knowing of them, has really nothing to do with the narrower question of the priority of sense or thought. The more general question cannot be discussed intelligently without an analysis of the knowing subject, in which it is brought from its functional place in the background and placed in the foreground of study, like any other entity. It may then be possible to discover its particular nature; and the particular nature of that peculiar relation which it sustains to those other things which are its objects; and finally whether that relation is or is not essential to the objects. The procedure of voluntaristic idealism in establishing the priority of will, purpose, or the judging activity with its ideals and norms, affords a peculiarly clear illustration of the Berkeleyan arguments. Thus Rickert writes: "We know nothing of a being that is, except it be judged to be, and no one knows anything of it, . . . for how could he know without having judged, and how could he judge without thereby recognizing an ought?" Now doubtless being is a predicate of judgment; and doubtless judgment like all activities is subject to a determinate obligation of its own. When I set out to know, reality is my destination, and prescribes the course of my action. Or, as Professor Royce expresses it, "the Other which Thought restlessly seeks" is "nothing but the will of the idea itself in some determinate expression." But why identify things with the cognitive adventure at all? I am no more justified in defining that which is my norm or purpose, my goal or destination, in terms of this relation, than I am justified in defining the office in terms of the office-seeking, or a geographical locality in terms of travellers who journey toward it. The reasoning of idealism has grown in popular effectiveness as European thought has acquired the habit of viewing reality as the idealist views it. So strong is this habit that many idealistic books are written with no attempt whatsoever at proof. We are invited to view the world as ' experience,' 'task,' 'situation,' 'truth,' 'goal,' or, in some others terms, as object of consciousness; and it is thereupon assumed without further ado that this aspect of the world, simply because it is there and may be selected, is definitive. But unless it can be proved that the relation of things to life, when they do sustain such a relation, is the 1 Rickert: op. cit., pp. 156-157; Royce: op. cit., pp. 588, 333. relation which bestows on them both their nature and their being, there is no difference between such idealism and a sheer romantic or spiritualistic bias. Objective Ideal- 12. Before bringing this chapter to a close we must inquire whether objective idealism has accomplished its restricted domestic task of saving idealism from a vicious subjectivism. There is but one crucial consideration here. Has idealism employed such a subjectivism, or has it been able to dispense with it? For it must be admitted that no philosophy can without contradiction both employ and reject the same assertion. The answer would seem to be perfectly clear. Idealism gets its proof from putting a certain construction on human consciousness, that being the only instance that comes under observation. The idealist must, then, first regard human consciousness as constitutive of its objects. Where this theory is strictly maintained, it holds not only of the individual consciousness, but even of the momentary consciousness. But the idealist himself sees that this involves contradictions. It provides no way of distinguishing the true or valid cases of knowledge from mere opinion. All cognitive states are made equally authoritative with reference to their objects. And where, as often happens, the same object is differently and inconsistently known in several cognitive states, there is no way of relieving the contradiction. So objective idealism is led to attribute constitutive validity only to some standard or universal consciousness, which shall afford objects their true and permanent ground. But this requires a correction of the initial interpretation of the individual or momentary consciousness. We must now suppose that these instances of consciousness do not constitute their objects; but either conform to them or misrepresent them. In other words, objects are now independent of those concrete instances of consciousness which first came under observation. And then what becomes of the proof of idealism? Having construed his own and his neighbor's consciousness realistically, where is the idealist to find the analogy for his hypothetical universal consciousness? And what occasion is there now for a universal consciousness? Had the idealist begun with a realistic version of human consciousness, the error of subjectivism would never have arisen, and his universal consciousness would have been a gratuitous as well as a meaningless invention. Thus the error which idealism corrects with so much ceremony proves to be indispensable to its own inner development. The error must be cherished if there is to be any demand for remedial intervention. Subjectivism cannot be abolished; it must, as has been frankly avowed, be retained as a "Durchgangstadium" on the way to a complete idealism. But either objective idealism must be taken as rejecting subjectivism, in which case it must banish it altogether from its councils, and start from an account of human consciousness that is wholly free from it; or it must be taken as accepting subjectivism, in which case it stands condemned by its own admissions. The basal arguments for idealism are the same as those for subjectivism. The arguments from 'the ego-centric predicament,' and from 'initial predication,' if they prove anything, prove subjectivism - even the extremes of relativism and solipsism. If they do not prove anything, then idealism, subjective and objective alike, is left unproved. In either case, the ground on which the idealistic system has been erected affords no reliable support. Whether this system is to be valued as an illumination of life cannot yet be judged. For there is another primary motive, the motive of absolutism, with which the cardinal idealistic principle has come to be allied. And it is impossible to reach any final estimate of idealism as a religious philosophy without examining absolutism on its own independent grounds. 1 Cf. Rickert. op. cit., p. 56. The General CHAPTER VIII ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 1. THE religion of an idealist is not a forlorn hope, or a defence of last ditches, but an enjoyment of all the emotions of sovereignty. Idealism undertakes to substantiate the extreme claims of faith, the creation of matter by spirit, the indestructible significance of every human person, and the unlimited supremacy of goodness. The terms of a devotional mysticism-Spirit, Perfection, Eternity, Infinity — appear in the very letter of its discourse. Nor has this promise of good tidings been unheeded. Idealism has acquired prestige and a position of authority. While it has little if any direct access to the popular mind, it is resorted to habitually by the middle men of enlightenment, by clergymen, litterateurs, lecturers, and teachers. Hence it comes about that many an honest man has invested all his hopes of salvation in the adventure. And this is my apology for undertaking to audit its accounts; the question of its solvency being of no small human importance. The religious creed of idealism may be said to contain two major articles. The one of these is the cardinal principle already examined the assertion of the priority of consciousness in the act of cognition. The second article is the principle of absolutism, and with this we shall, in the present chapter, be chiefly occupied. The sense in which I propose to employ the term 'absolutism,' is to be distinguished from two other senses in which it is also currently employed. These other uses of the term appear, it is true, chiefly in the writings of idealists; but they may nevertheless be regarded as quite independent. In the first place, 'absolute' is often taken |