Page:Philosophical Review Volume 18.djvu/234

220 sociological interpretations of history and the dangers of historical relativism, he defines the problem. Truth and goodness are discovered, experienced, and partially achieved, in a historically conditioned life, but, if they are purely relative, they lose their meaning. The True and the Good must have their ground in an eternal time-transcending spiritual life. Now, history is not the external record of the past as past. It is the effective persistence of the past in the present. The very possibility of historical knowledge presupposes a persistent time-spanning unity or likeness of structure and function in the human mind. The very distinction of epochs and stages in history is possible only if there be a mental life that transcends and unifies these. History, then, means a constant struggle against mere time and change. If history be possible in any meaningful sense, there must be a supra-temporal spiritual life, a spiritual present rich in content that spans and persists through the succession of fleeting moments. And history has to do directly, not with the Eternal Spiritual life, but with man's relation to it and with his struggle toward it. The historical mode of viewing things must take a place secondary to a metaphysics which reveals the meta-historical time-transcending life of Spirit. There must be no arbitrary construction of the human world as the empire of absolute reason. The very contradictions and unreason of history drive man towards the life that is above history. In particular, the philosophical treatment of history will be directed towards the discovery and exposition of the specific culture-complexes or life-systems that are effective in the life of humanity. It should emphasize the ethical character of history and the creative significance of great personalities.

Paulsen gives a compact exposition of his well-known theory of ethics. He defends particularly his Ideological conception of the good against Kantian formalism, and he emphasizes the necessity of a metaphysics of ethics. Munch's essay on Pädagogik seems as thoroughly competent and sane as it is comprehensive. Lipps, writing on Aesthetik gives a compact outline of his own theories, especially of Einfühlung as the fundamental psychological feature of æsthetic ex- perience. Æsthetic sympathy is the essence of æsthetic enjoyment. The ground of æsthetic valuation is an ideal selfhood felt into the object. Lipps defines the formal features of æsthetic experiences, discusses the various methods of artistic expression and the different arts. He protests vigorously against the formula "art for art's sake," and against an æsthetic world view. Ethics should afford the final determinants of a world view. Finally, in Die Zukunftsaufgaben der Philosophie, Paulsen pronounces for an objective idealism of a