Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/379

No. 3.]

Even before the appearance of Positivism, the author of the Critical Philosophy had sought to demonstrate the impossibility of metaphysic. But the sentence pronounced by Kant and by Comte should not be without appeal. The particular sciences, which study the facts of human experience, obey rules and follow general paths. There is need of a science which shall investigate the methods and the ultimate assumptions of the particular sciences. R. gives a very condensed résumé of the course which philosophical thought has taken from the earliest times to the present day, his object being to show that the instinctive beliefs of primitive man appear again in the doctrines of some of the most profound philosophers. From this one may perhaps conclude that an epoch is approaching when those holding the most diverse views will see that their differences of opinion may be explained by the different aspects of things, when observed from different points of view. But this is not all. As Pascal said, in most things it is culpable to obtain the approval of men through feeling rather than through reason; but with truths of the divine order it is different. One must love in order to understand. It is the heart that instructs and judges. Hence the true metaphysic is not the privilege of the learned; it is also the portion of the ordinary man. From a metaphysic which holds to the idea of a first and universal principle which gives even to the extent of giving itself, a moral code should be derived which would be the application of this idea to the conduct of life. The ideal of such a code would be magnanimity. This was the moral ideal of the earliest times and that which prevailed during the great epochs of Greek and Roman civilization. The institution of chivalry bears witness that it was also the ideal of the Middle Ages. To its revival we must look for the remedy of the evils and the solution of the difficulties of the present.

E. A.

Philosophy has, according to common consent, a double task. It must deal with the facts of the human consciousness and at the