ultimate conservation of but one, the logical value of a world-order. The attempt to invest will with the universality of logic has led to the reduction of will to logic. But a will so conceived, while it may claim universality, must be insufficient and indeterminate with reference to life.1 Equivocation in Absolute Idealism § 7. In spite of the fact that when strictly interpreted absolute idealism succeeds in grounding reality in spirit only through having first reduced spirit to logic, it has nevertheless been offered, and is still offered, as a confirmation of religious belief. This is possible, I am convinced, only by virtue of the suggestive power of terms borrowed from religious tradition, and used without a strict regard for their meaning. In other words, idealism, like preKantian absolutism, appears to escape formalism only by falling into the more serious error of equivocation. The fundamental equivocation in idealism is its use of terms that ordinarily refer to characteristic forms of human consciousness such as 'thought,' 'will,' 'personality,' and 'spirit.' Whatever may be true of consciousness in general, the moral and religious significance of consciousness is bound up with those very elements which must be eliminated if the conception is to be employed as an unlimited generalization. Thus 'thought' suggests a stage of development in life, a prerogative of man, distinguishing him from the greater part of his environment; but a universal thought, an absolute idea, must be coextensive with the totality and exhibited as truly in the mechanisms of nature as in the purposes of man. Indeed, the greater the stress laid on the universality of thought, the more is one compelled 1Cf. also, above, pp. 151, 152. The 'eternity' of value may be taken to mean that true judgments of value, like other true judgments, must have objective validity, or be in some sense independent of the individual judging mind. But this affects neither the question as to what is valuable, nor the question as to whether value shall prevail. It is thus non-committal both with reference to morals and religion. Cf. below, pp. 335-340. 2 Cf. Chap. XII. The to identify it with nature rather than with man. term 'will' belongs inseparably to the assertion of particular interests in the face of indifferent circumstance, and in the midst of other wills that may be friendly or hostile. But an 'over-individual will' must coincide with all particular interests and also with their environment. Its over-individuality is better exhibited in the environment than in the interests themselves. Similarly, "personal self" refers to a coördination of "inner world, fellow-world, and outer world." But Professor Münsterberg, nevertheless proposes to conceive the fundamental principle from which all three are derived, as "selfhood without individuality." "We might suggest it," he writes, "by the words 'over-self.' The over-self is therefore reached as soon as the reference to the personal conditions in our experience is eliminated. On the other hand, as soon as the over-self posits in itself a limited personal self, its undifferentiated content must at once separate itself into a self, a co-self, and a not-self." 1 Now such qualifications as 'over,' 'super,' 'absolute,' attaching to words "by way of eminency," in the majority of cases really alter their meaning. But since the words. 'thought,' 'will,' and 'self' are none the less retained, the unsuspecting layman not unnaturally understands them in the familiar sense, in that sense in which he can verify them in his own experience. The suggestions of these and other like terms must inevitably outweigh the technical meaning which they possess in the discourse of idealistic philosophy. The layman is never really taken into the confidence of the augurs. Hence he is readily led to believe that he is guaranteed the triumph of civilization over the mechanical cosmos, and of good over evil. He is 1 Op. cit., pp. 395, 398. Of all absolute idealists, Bradley most consistently avoids such procedure as this, with the result that his first principle is almost wholly devoid of characters. For his discussion of the self, see Appearance and Reality, Ch. X, especially p. 114. An excellent illustration of this procedure is afforded by the conception so much in favor with critical idealists, of a "non-psychological subject." Cf. above, pp. 140, 144, 146. persuaded that the Absolute takes sides with him against his foes and promises him the victory. Little does he suspect that such a being must by definition stand uncommitted to any cause, the impartial creator and spectator of things as they are. The most signal equivocation of which idealism has been guilty is its use of the terms 'good' and 'evil.' Equivocation is involved even in the project of such a solution as that which idealism undertakes. Evil constitutes a problem because it opposes, retards, or defeats the good will. If evil were not in this sense uncompromisingly alien to good, defined in contradistinction to it, there would be no problem. Now, to solve this problem in the idealistic sense means to discover some way of regarding evil as conducive to good, as 'good for' good, as part of a whole that is better for its presence. But such a project necessarily involves a new definition of good, in which the old good shall be neutralized through the complicity of evil. And this is undeniably the case with every interpretation of the Absolute's goodness that idealism has formulated.' Good and evil are united in a new conception of value, the very essence of which is its implication of both good and evil. Now assuming that it is possible to formulate such a conception, and to attribute to it the unlimited generality that absolutism requires, it is certainly impossible to call it 'good' without equivocation. For that term will continue to suggest what is now construed as only one of its partial aspects. And the new conception appears to be a solution of the original problem only because of this suggestion. It seems to assert a victory of good over evil, whereas it really asserts only a perpetual and doubtful battle between the two, giving a certain fixity and finality to the very situation from which it promised deliverance. The same motive which leads absolutism to the equivocal 1 Cf. McTaggart: Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, Chap VI, especially 182-188. I return to this subject in discussing pluralism. Cf. below, pp. 246-248. use of words leads it to mysticism. For mysticism is the express admission that the first principle cannot properly be characterized at all. Words can do no more than suggest an experience that lies beyond the reach of their definite meanings. Thus absolute idealists who seek to avoid both formalism and agnosticism, and who, like McTaggart, admit that self, will, and volition all involve relations and limitations that cannot be attributed to an absolute, are prompted to employ some less articulate version of spirit, such as "love." In terms of this dissolving emotion he ventures "to indicate the possibility of finding, above all knowledge and volition, one all-embracing unity, which is only not true, only not good, because all truth and all goodness are but distorted shadows of its absolute perfection-'das Unbegreifliche, weil es der Begriff selbst ist."" The equivocation into which absolute idealism so readily falls, can scarcely be said to be an accident. It is the result of an effort to escape formalism. If equivocation be strictly avoided, there is no content which can be attributed to the all-general principle, save the abstract and insufficient categories of logic. § 8. We have now to inquire whether absolutism is enabled by the aid of idealism to escape dogmatism. The Dogmatism in proof of absolutism depends, as we have seen, Absolute on the implication of a maximum of knowledge. It must be supposed that as a curve can be plotted from several points, so a progression can be defined from the several instances of human knowledge. And this progression, thus defined, must be supposed to define a supreme or consummate knowledge as its upper limit.2 Employing the idealistic principle, and assuming that reality is answerable to the demands of the cognitive consciousness, we may thus attribute to reality the ultimate demand or ideal of the cognitive consciousness. 1 Op. cit., p. 292. "It is involved in the very idea of a developing consciousness such as ours, that... as an intelligence, it presupposes the idea of the whole." (Caird: "Idealism and the Theory of Knowledge," pp. 8-9.) What, when I think, am I virtually postulating as the perfect success of thought? What unlimited cognitive attainment may I infer from the very limitations which I seek to escape? Let me cite two contemporary exponents of the doctrine. "Truth," writes Mr. Joachim, "was the systematic coherence which characterized a significant whole. And we proceeded to identify a significant whole with 'an organized individual experience, self-fulfilling and self-fulfilled.' Now there can be one and only one such experience: or only one significant whole, the significance of which is self-contained in the sense required. For it is absolute self-fulfilment, absolutely self-contained significance, that is postulated; and nothing short of absolute individuality — nothing short of the completely whole experience can satisfy this postulate. And human knowledge not merely my knowledge or yours, but the best and fullest knowledge in the world at any stage of its development is clearly not a significant whole in this ideally complete sense. Hence the truth, which our sketch described, is from the point of view of the human intelligence an Ideal, and an Ideal which can never as such, or in its completeness, be actual as human experience." 1 Or compare the statement of Professor Royce. "In the first place, the reality that we seek to know has always to be defined as that which either is or would be present to a sort of experience which we ideally define as organized - that is, a united and transparently reasonable - experience. . . . Passing to the limit in this direction, we can accordingly say that by the absolute reality we can only mean either that which is present to an absolutely organized experience inclusive of all possible experience, or that which would be presented as the content of such an experience if there were one."2 Elsewhere, Professor Royce describes this "absolutely organized experience' as "an individual life, present as a whole, totum simul." 1 Joachim, The Nature of Truth, pp. 78-79. |