Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/542

 528 CEITICAL NOTICES : conceptions of physical Science, but it may be doubted whether the separation between the physical and the metaphysical side of Aristotle can be carried out as completely as the Hegelian inter- pretation supposes. The book consists of two parts. The first is a statement and defence of the idealistic position in its Hegelian form : the second, entitled the "Criticism of the Categories," consists in an attempt to re-state in the light of present Science the Hegelian view of the relation of the lower categories the categories employed in Mathe- matics and Physics to the higher categories postulated by Biology,. Morality, Keligion and Philosophy. With regard to the first of these parts, it would be useless to attempt a resume of what is itself of necessity, owing to its limits a resume. Nor is this the place for any general criticism upon the Hegelian position. Against many of the current criticisms upon that position Mr. Haldane certainly justifies himself strongly enough, whatever may be thought of their validity against Hegel himself. His Universe is certainly no "unearthly ballet of blood- less categories ". He certainly does not think it possible to- anticipate experience, and deduce the Universe by a priori thinking. He differentiates himself from " subjective Idealism " to the farthest point which is still compatible with Idealism. He dislikes even the common phrase about the mind " making " Nature : it is equally true, he holds, to say that Nature makes the Mind. If he is less emphatic in his insistence upon immediate feeling than Mr. Bradley, it could hardly be said of him, as Mr. Hobhouse has said of Green, that it is not clear what function he attributes to sensation in the formation of our knowledge except that it is a contemptible one. If he is disposed to minimise the importance of the distinc- tion between Will and Thought, he has been affected by the insistence of recent Psychology upon " attention," and is prepared to admit that the ultimate Eeality must be looked upon as Will no less than Thought. In these and many other ways Mr. Haldane is emphatic in repudiating many of the ideas which have rightly or wrongly been attributed to Hegel, and which have certainly more or less coloured the teaching of not a few among his disciples. But in other ways Mr. Haldane seems to me to bring out in what I may call an aggressive form the difficulties which Hegelianism presents to those who, if they have explored its- outer court, do not pretend to have found their way into its Holy of Holies, and are doubtful about the existence or the importance of the secrets alleged to have been discovered therein by those who profess to have penetrated beyond the veil. The great difficulty which they experience is to grasp the relation which is supposed to exist between the universal Mind and its individual manifes- tations. Dr. McTaggart, who professes to be herein a faithful interpreter of the Master's thought, has, indeed, got rid of the difficulty of minds within a Mind by frankly admitting that the' universal Mind is only a name for the organised society of in-