Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/216

202 ism" – "if Berkeley retains any claim to the doctrine he discovered!" (p. 546.) But the doctrine of many "spirits," existing alongside of and mutually excluding one another, is just that part of Berkeley's philosophy which he did not "discover," but simply took over without criticism from ordinary picture-thinking and traditional popular theology; and in his last philosophical work, the Siris (to which Prof. A. C. Fraser has recalled the attention of the world), we find him struggling, with the help of ancient sages, to obtain some more adequate conception of the One in relation to the Many than he had reached in the naïve metaphysics of his earlier writings. If Mr. Schiller wishes a correct label for the views I have tried to maintain about Reality, I should be quite satisfied with "Neo-Berkeleian," and the name would honestly indicate that, even if the controversy about Reality were settled in the Neo-Kantian fashion, we were only at the beginning of the detailed problems of philosophy. We should only, like Berkeley, have cleared the ground by getting rid of a certain amount of bad metaphysics. If by "What is reality?" were meant, "What are the constituent elements of the universe?" which is what I suppose Mr. Schiller means by his question, "What does reality turn out to be – after inquiry?" (p. 535, foot), I should consider that the question was rather awkwardly worded, but I should certainly agree that we are a very long way from a proper answer, and that that answer can only come "after inquiry," i.e. after all the sciences have been perfected.

DAVID G. RITCHIE.

JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD.

REALITY AND "IDEALISM."

The kindness of the Editor enables me to comment briefly on Mr. Ritchie's reply to my criticism. Mr. Ritchie complains that I have misunderstood him, but I find nothing in his remarks to sustain this charge. With one exception – for I certainly supposed that we were discussing something more interesting than the philological meaning of the word "reality," and dealing at least with propositions and 'ideal contents,' if not with the reality which is beyond them and provokes them. But for the rest, I have nothing to