Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/243

229 imply any doubt as to ability of the author, or any disparagement of the manner in which he has carried out his self-imposed task. It may rather be directed against the task itself. If the "Greatest Problems" of philosophy are not fairly to be likened to those riddles which puzzled Alice in Wonderland, of which the peculiarity was that they had no answers, it must surely be admitted by every student of the history of speculative thought that the answers reached never set the questions finally at rest, but are only, in Hegelian language, "moments" in the onward march of speculation itself; new problems, or the old ones in more adequate and rationalized forms, are ever emerging from the solutions that have been accepted. Nor can these "Greatest Problems" be quite satisfactorily exposed and discussed in a single volume by an individual thinker, however well informed and well equipped for his task, since inevitably under such conditions it is not possible to take account, on the one hand, of the widely differing points of view from which readers will regard the subject-matter under discussion, and, on the other, of the possible solutions, at variance with those of the author, to the questions in dispute. In this instance, a preliminary conviction as to the legitimacy of the doctrine of pragmatism as a method, and of idealism as an end, would seem to the present writer needful if the main arguments here adduced are to be sufficient for the author's purpose. Do 'values' "depend upon their 'truth,' or do 'truths' depend upon their value"? Interesting as it is, the work before us does not logically settle these questions, and unless the reader is prepared to answer them in the sense of the pragmatist, no sound foundation is laid for the edifice of idealism which the author proceeds to rear. Moreover, when there is no examination into the structure of other systems of thought—and for this, of course, a single volume offers no opportunities—the student is left in doubt as to whether the conclusions reached are the only ones worthy of consideration. None the less, Signor Varisco's reasoning is often weighty, while his language is always clear and free from unnecessary technicalities; the chapter on "I Valori" in particular is an extremely able presentation of his views on this subject and will prove profitable reading even for those who dissent from his argument. The whole book is significant as showing that idealism with a strongly religious coloring still possesses vitality and vigor.

Those readers who are familiar with Paulhan's brilliant and exasperating essays will require but little inducement to take up the present little volume. It is as characteristic a piece of worldly wisdom as one could wish co find. The outline is very simple. Man is by nature social to a very slight degree. Necessity has imposed upon him a very complex social life, to which he is far from being adapted; and the result is an unreconcilable inner conflict. The function of morality is to repress this conflict by persuading the individual that he has no antisocial interests, and that the sacrifices which society