Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/235

221 truth and error and all the rest would not remain what they are now, or rather that they would not be what they are to one who held to a different theory of the course of events.

It would not be difficult to show that a metaphysics is implied in Professor Dewey's own doctrines, and that his failure to develop this side of his theory has been one of the chief sources of the misunderstandings of which he complains. Some theory of the conditions and general nature of experience and of the origin and function of consciousness is involved, for example, in his claim that his own view is 'naturalistic' as opposed to all forms of transcendentalism. In all references to the relation of the individual to the objective situation and to other individuals in society, a theory of knowledge and of reality is necessary in order to render the account completely intelligible: the specific problem is part of a larger problem which is always more or less explicitly involved in its formulation. We all are trying in our own way to be naturalistic in our thinking,—to get rid of ultimate dualisms and transcendent principles and to find explanations within experience itself. This, however, does not mean the abandonment of the old problems, but their restatement. The progress of philosophy requires that the meaning of specific problems be revised and modified in the light of general theories of experience, just as the latter are transformed and reconstructed through the analysis of particular situations.

It would not be right to close this review, in which I have emphasized points of difference, without speaking of the stimulating quality of these essays, which is perhaps the best evidence that they are, what their author intended them to be, a 'contribution to the revision of our stock notions.' Especially interesting are the historical summaries and interpretations which many of the papers contain. Even when one cannot admit that the generalizations do full justice to the historical facts, one never fails to find the treatment suggestive and instructive.

In this volume Dr. Lyman has published the Nathaniel William Taylor lectures which he delivered before the Divinity School of Yale University in December, 1909. Both style and thought are characterized by clearness and precision. Definiteness, however, is often secured by way of contrasts rather than by accurate characterization. As a result, certain doctrines hardly receive their just due, and the criticisms, therefore, fail to carry conviction.

Two methods, the author points out in the preface, are open to workers in the field of theology: the 'cloistral,' which aims to defend religion, seeking support for existing religious truth in philosophy, in tradition, or in the church; and the 'clinical,' which strives to develop religion, to deepen the significance