Page:Philosophical Review Volume 14.djvu/228

212 recognizes the difficulties and warns us against a cheap and easy idealism that heals the wounds of nature too lightly. But does he recognize them sufficiently? And is he sufficiently sympathetic to those philosophers who, being unable to see how all the elements of our world are connected with a single principle, have acknowledged the recalcitrant element, such as 'matter' or 'evil,' as a fact, and so contented themselves with a relative dualism, or at least with a philosophy admittedly incomplete? It is hard, indeed, to see that the principle of unity he so strenuously upholds really meets the difficulties, and especially that it meets the problem of religion. For granting that all forms of our consciousness are, as he maintains, bound up with the idea of an all-comprehending whole and a principle of its unity, unless it can be shown that this principle is good and righteous, it fails signally of its purpose. On the other hand, religion would very well persist if philosophy were obliged to admit dualism, but could show a principle in the world eternally at war with evil and intrinsically strong enough to overcome it, or at least capable of infusing strength into our efforts to do so. No doubt a spiritual monism would be better. But the mere assertion of the one concrete idea is not enough; it must be shown. Otherwise it remains a postulate of faith, only as good for religion as any other postulate that meets its practical needs, and not one whit more satisfying to the intellect.

The first edition of The Ethics of Naturalism was published in 1885 being based upon the author's course of lectures as Shaw Fellow in the University of Edinburgh in the preceding year. Professor Sorley has taken advantage of the present opportunity, not only to revise the work throughout and to add references to the recent literature of the subject, but also to make certain substantial additions to its scope. "The chief purpose of the work," he tells us in the Preface, is "to arrive at an exact estimate of the ethical significance of the theory of evolution. ... We must ask whether the factors of biological evolution are adequate to the explanation of moral development. A still