Page:Philosophical Review Volume 14.djvu/378

362 the evolutionary concept for the universe at large, yet was unable to rise above the mechanical and absolutist conception of the world as a mechanism.

The other limitation in Spencer's thought is the vagueness of his evolutionary formula. The fault here also lies in his too exclusive emphasis upon the physical science categories. The contradiction implied in his doctrine of the "instability of the homogeneous" has been the frequent topic of criticism. Professor Royce adds the further criticism that, while in his general formula consolidation or integration appears as the primary feature of evolution, in organic evolution the very reverse of this, a process of expansion or differentiation, predominates. "In general, organic evolution involves the taking in of energy from the environment, and the consequent presence of various anabolic processes which are, in type, the reverse of the consolidations which take place when bodies cool, stiffen, and grow harder" (p. 103-104). "If this be so, how can evolution be described as a single process, of which consolidation is the primary?" "One fears, then, that this is so far the main result: Evolution is the consolidation, except in those highly important cases where it is an expansion. Often it is both." "Is this result contradictory? Not at all. Many a process keeps its unity by precisely such an union of opposing tendencies. But the formula is so far simply unenlightening, because it does not tell me wherein this unity lies" (p. 109-110). "He should show us how these various tendencies are, in the various types of evolutionary process, kept in that peculiar balance and unity which, each time, constitutes an evolution. This is what Spencer seems not to have done" (p. 114-115).

This brochure is an address delivered before the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at St. Louis. It is a clear and systematic discussion of the logic and methodology of the science of religion, written with genuine philosophical insight. It will certainly contribute to a clearing-up of the situation in this field, and it is to be hoped that those devotees of the science of religion who expect to make progress solely by the heaping-up of historical and psychological data will take Professor Troeltsch's discussion seriously to heart.

Professor Troeltsch begins by distinguishing the contemporary science of religion from the two older forms of the philosophy of religion, viz., the supernaturalistic, orthodox procedure which regarded all religions except Christianity as totally erroneous, and the rationalistic procedure which reduced religion to an a priori metaphysics. In contrast with these methods, the true science of religion must be based on the psychological