Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/254

 240 CRITICAL NOTICES I thought's " self-transcendence " ; psychology knows nothing .of representative intent ; and the category of " reference " in logic is none the less primary there because metaphysics and psychology can analyse it into resemblance and function. It must be said, however, that Prof. Fullerton's conceptions are not sufficiently expressed in this direction to show how far his divergence from the view just expressed lies in verbal habit and how far in thought. In stating his theory of the physical world we have made another omission. We have not noted (and we do so with diffi- dence) the almost intangible signs that two tendencies are at work. The first of these is that to which we have given rein in the exposition: to regard the second sense of the word "real" as ultimately analysable in terms of the first, to regard objects as ultimately analysable in terms of experience. The second tend- ency is to regard the second sense as equally simple and ultimate with the other. The second tendency seems bred of an increasing impulse to nestle yet closer, if possible, to common sense ; to push as far away as possible from the eccentricities of "idealism". However, if the second tendency had its way, surely the term "construction" as applied to the physical world would have to be given up, and the chapter which explains infinite divisibility as " a system of substitutions " would have to be rewritten. As it is, the disturbing presence of both suggestions is not out of accord with the pregnant genuineness of the book, and marks the hesitancy of refined thought before the final phase of the problem. We must look to its author to dispel a misunderstanding, or to organise further the elements of his theory. In the intellectual temper of the work we find no fault. In one respect the whole sets a good example which should be noted as we turn from it, namely, in the searching critical fire kept up at loose thinking on all sides. In the present state of plethora and confusion few conceptions can be driven home unless one shows what they are not. Aimed chiefly as it is to cure one great taint in speculative habit, the book would have missed a chance of ser- vice if it had less persistently laid bare the workings of fallacy. Destructive criticism is censured for its sterility, but we hold with old authority that there is a pruning that makes the sound grow strong. No one can say that modern philosophers are not produc- tive, but who is hardy enough to maintain that they have produced the tests and tested principles on which a science rests ; or that they have produced them as nearly as by discipline they might ? In reading this author's "negative criticism : ' we could wish that the higher walks of thought were always so well policed. His wit and true strokes of satire are not here misplaced. DICKINSON S. MILLER.