confirmed the criticism of Hume, and added to it the destruction of the venerable and feeble Cartesianism of his day; contending that to deduce God from the idea or definition merely, must fail to establish his existence. In other words, the method of empirical science relying on sensible fact, and the method of exact science relying on mathematical or quasi-mathematical concepts, had alike failed to justify religion. There resulted a new division of thought, the division broadly characteristic of the nineteenth century, between the party of science and the party of religion. And at the same time philosophy was confronted with the dilemma which has made its present position so ambiguous. Apparently compelled to choose between science and religion, it has itself divided into two parties: those who have followed science for the sake of its theoretical motive, and those who have followed religion on account of its subject-matter. The division between the scientific philosophers and the religious philosophers was further accentuated by the passing of a certain type of thinker. The great scientists and the great speculative metaphysicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were in many instances the same individuals. Such was the case, for example, with Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, and even Kant. M. Abel Rey, in La Philosophie Moderne, writes: "All the great philosophers were remarkable savants, and the great savant never disdained to philosophize. So that one may regard as peculiar and characteristic the complete separation which existed for a time in the nineteenth century, not between the investigations (this is legitimate and necessary), but between the investigators." And the rea son for this lay, as M. Rey points out, not only in the movement of ideas which has just been described, but also in the circumstance that science had become so vast in bulk as to exceed the capacity of any single individual. The 1 pp. 20-21 man of all science was replaced by the man of one science, confident of his ground in proportion to the narrowness of his field, and suspicious of all attempts to deal with ultimates or finalities. Unless the philosopher was himself to become a specialist, and confine himself to the categories of one science, he seemed in very self-defense to be compelled to adopt an independent method of his own; a method opposed, not to one science in particular, but to science as a whole. And he found that method in religion, already united with the proper philosophical subject matter. The Scientific § 8. Professor Émile Boutroux sums up the admirable Introduction to his Science et Religion dans la Philosophie Contemporaine, as follows: "Science and RePhilosophy and ligion had no longer, as with the modern the Religious rationalists, a common surety-reason: each Philosophy of them absolute in its own way, they were distinct at every point, as were, according to the reigning psychology, the two faculties of the soul, intellect and feeling, to which respectively they corresponded. Thanks to this mutual independence, they could find themselves together in one and the same consciousness; they subsisted there, side by side, like two impenetrable material atoms in spacial juxtaposition. They had agreed explicitly or tacitly to abstain from scrutinizing one another's principles. Mutual respect for their established positions, and thereby security and liberty for each such was the device of the period." Corresponding to this dualistic fashion of thought, there appeared in the course of the last century the scientific philosophy, or positivism, and the religious philosophy, or romanticism. Each of these types of philosophy was connected with one of the great destroyThis book has recently been translated into English by J. Nield. Cf. the Introduction, passim. 1p. 35. * I am using this term to mean a philosophy in which the spiritual ground or centre of things is postulated, or accepted by an act of faith. It is the philosophy in which the motive of religious belief is allowed to dominate. Cf. below, pp. 152-154. ers of the philosophy of the past-positivism with Hume, and romanticism with Kant. Hume's criticism was unmitigated. It placed the objects of religious interest absolutely beyond the range of reason. The book of divinity, since it consists neither of "abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number," nor of "experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence," must be committed to the flames: "for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.' Comte, who followed a century later, gave to positivism a more constructive and hopeful turn, extending to mankind the prospect of the limitless growth of science, and the upbuilding of civilization through the progressive conquest of nature and improvement of man. But Comte's condemnation of the former religious metaphysics was, if possible, more severe than that of Hume, for he correlated it with the infancy and childhood of the mind. Finally, with Herbert Spencer, the metaphysics of former times was formally tried, convicted, and banished to the realm of the 'Unknowable.' The scientist, whether mathematician or experimentalist, was left in absolute possession of the sources of enlightenment; he became not only the consulting engineer, but oracle and wiseman as well. With Kant, on the other hand, the negation of the older rationalism paved the way for a philosophy of faith. Although positive knowledge was restricted to the hierarchy of the physical sciences, the reason was left in possession of the necessary and valid ideal of the 'Unconditioned'; while God, Freedom, and Immortality, the objects of religion, found their ground in the moral will. Although they might no longer be judged true, according to the canons of theory, they must be believed for the deeper and more authoritative purposes of life. This provision of the Kantian critique is the prototype of romanticism, the philosophy dictated by religion. Romanticism did not 1 Hume: Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding (1749), SelbyBigge's edition, p. 165. seek, like the philosophy of the previous centuries, to justify the articles of faith by the procedure of science, but to justify the attitude of faith, and clothe it with authority in its own right. Romanticism involved, therefore, no conversion of the passionate terms of religion into the dispassionate terms of theory; it reaffirmed the claims of religion in the spirit and language of religion, transforming them only in so far as was necessary to give them unity and conscious expression. Naturalism and Realism § 9. In positivism and romanticism the two motives of philosophy became sharply separated and opposed. Positivism is philosophy driven into the camp of science by loyalty to the standards of exact Rise of Pragma- research; romanticism is philosophy merged tism and Neo- into religion through its interest in the same ultimate questions. These two tendencies determined the course of philosophy in the nineteenth century; and they are represented today by naturalism and idealism respectively. In 'naturalism,' the positivistic tendency develops in the direction of a systematic materialism, or in the direction of a more refined criticism of scientific concepts. In 'idealism,' the romantic tendency amplifies and reinforces the theory of knowledge upon which it must rest its case the theory of the priority of the forms and ideals of the cognitive consciousness. But the difference between naturalism and idealism, like that between science and religion, with which they are respectively correlated, lies not so much in the disagreement of theory as in an opposition of attitude and method. The exponent of naturalism is governed by that reserve and apathy which belong to the scientist's code of honor; the idealist carries into his philosophy all the importunity and high aspiration of life. For him "the teleological standpoint, that of inner meaning or significance," is "the standpoint of philosophy itself." i 1 1 E. Albee; "The Present Meaning of Idealism," Philosophical Review, Vol. XVIII, 1909. To naturalism and idealism have latterly been added 'pragmatism' and the new 'realism.' Whether these more recent tendencies represent the philosophy "qui commence,” and naturalism and idealism the philosophy "qui finit," will be certainly known only by those of a later generation. At present they enjoy no such prestige as is enjoyed by their rivals. Naturalism derives credit from the triumphs of science, idealism from the loyalties and hopes of religion. Both pragmatism and realism, furthermore, have begun as revolts, and the very vigor of their protest testifies to the strength of the resistance which they must overcome. But there can be no doubt of their virility, and of their capacity for growth. Pragmatism and realism are agreed in opposing both the narrowness of naturalism and the extravagance of idealism. Both seek to unite the empirical temper of the former with the latter's recognition of problems that lie outside the field of the positive sciences. They accept neither the finality of physical fact nor the validity of the ideal of the absolute. Their differences are scarcely less striking than their agreement, and may in the end drive them far apart. Pragmatism is primarily concerned to dispute the monistic and transcendental elements of idealism, and to construe life and thought in terms of that human life and thought that may be brought directly under observation, and studied without resort to dialectic. But life and thought remain the central topic of inquiry, and tend without sufficient warrant to usurp the centre of being. In short, pragmatism is never far removed from that dogmatic anthropomorphism, that instinctive or arbitrary adoption of the standpoint of practical belief, that is so central a motive in idealism. Realism, on the other hand, reacts not only against absolutism, but against anthropomorphism as well. Realism departs more radically from idealism than does pragmatism. Were the dilemma a real one, pragmatism would find more in common with idealism, and realism with natu |