Page:Journal of Speculative Philosophy Volume 16.djvu/215

208 sophical knowledge, be accomplished. Since the for-itself-existing subjectivity is absolutely identical with the substantial universality, religion as such, and also the State as such — as forms in which the principle exists — contains the absolute truth, so that this, since it exists as philosophy, exists only in one of its forms. But since religion in its own development develops also the distinctions contained in the idea, so being can appear in its first immediate — i. e., one-sided — form, and the existence of religion become corrupted to sensual externality, and, consequently, further, to the oppression of the freedom of the spirit and the perversion of political life. But the principle contains the infinite elasticity of the absolute form to overcome this corruption of its determination of form, and. by this means, of the content, and to effect the reconciliation of spirit in itself. Thus, at last, the principle of the religious and the moral conscience becomes one and the same in the Protestant conscience, the free spirit knowing itself in its reasonableness and truth. The constitution and legislation, like their working and trial, have for their content the principle and the development of morality, which proceeds, and only can proceed, from the truth of religion restored to its original principle, and thus first, as such, real. The morality of the state and the religious spirituality of the state are thus the state's reciprocal and sure guarantees.

— THE METAPHYSICAL ASSUMPTIONS OF MATERIALISM. BY JOHN DEWEY.

Discussions regarding materialism have been, for the most part, confined to the physiological and psychological aspects of it. Its supporters and opponents have been content to adduce arguments pro or con, as the facts of physical and mental life bear upon the case in hand. It is the object of the present paper to discuss its metaphysical phases.

Hume suggested that possibly one might escape from the nihilistic consequences of his philosophy by means of "the sceptical