Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/701

687 evolutionism is characterized by the production of absolute novelties, the attempt being, not to do away with teleology, but to dissociate teleology from anthropomorphism by means of the concept of a blind purposiveness in the Will.

A function is defined in terms of its independence of its other. All real things are functions, and are real in proportion as they are functionised. All things are also systems of functions, demanding analysis, and elements of functions, demanding synthesis. Functionalism may be proved by showing the relativity and hypothetical character of anything you please, for example, of the given object, or of the ego of the present instant. Even "nothing" is defined by asbtraction from the universe. Functionalism surpasses ordinary Idealism in that it is as clear in its statement and conception of the functional character of the subject as of the object, Any possible objection to this view develops into a confirmation of it, for such a doubt is one of the infinite number of partial truths demanding as supplementation for themselves the systematic whole. God is this functional system as a self-conscious Absolute. But his absoluteness embraces our relative views of the world. The plane of the individual mind depends on the comprehensiveness of its syntheses, that is, its proximity to the absolute point of view. Temporal succession is our limited interpretation of God's eternal order.

The charge that such an Idealism as Mr. Bradley's starts from axiomsis due to a misapprehension of its method. Assuming only that we must think, that is, that we must satisfy the mind's theoretical need, it proceeds by means of experiments on reality. For example, that reality is a many in one, and that relations are internal and not external, are the results of experiments. The fundamental conclusions thus obtained are that reality is, in general, a mediated intelligible whole, and is, specifically, experience. This criterion of intellectual satisfaction is more intelligible and successful than the criteria of Darwinism and of Pragmatism. How does this Idealism deal with certain important logical problems? The problem of truth's reference to an object beyond itself is solved by abandoning the abstract separation of the knowing subject and its object. The two are aspects of one reality. The subjective element in any particular judgment is the irrelevant, for a judgment is always an abstraction for a particular purpose. In one sense no judgment transcends itself, for every judgment contains implicitly the whole of reality; yet every judgment does transcend itself in that it reaches toward a reality which it can not explicitly express. The problem whether I may think a truth which has never been thought before is solved by a distinction. As a particular