Page:Philosophical Review Volume 23.djvu/708

692 determined needs. ... This is at once relativistic, positivistic, pragmatic, and constructive" (p. 18). As regards the 'simple' ideas, with which we seemed to start, these are gradually found to be complex, derived, and conditioned. Otherwise expressed, "they become increasingly regarded as working assumptions and less and less as established facts" (p. 22). As regards 'complex' ideas, not only are substances (so far as knowable) and relations (taken in any definite sense) 'constructs,' but the same really applies to 'modes' as well (p. 74). And yet none of these are more arbitrary than the purposes which determine their spheres of relevance, and these may be as significant as you please for the interpretation of experience.

The author's own position, which is more or less involved throughout, seems to be a sort of compromise between idealism and pragmatism. It might perhaps be described as instrumental idealism, recognizing the reality of change and actual novelty in the world process, with strong but not unambiguous emphasis upon individuality in terms of the self. It is equally opposed to sensationalism, any form of realism which insists upon the externality of relations, and absolute idealism. In the opinion of the reviewer, Dr. Hartmann not infrequently reads too much into Locke—not merely too much of more modern philosophy, but too much of his individual point of view—but he is right in attempting to differentiate Locke's constructive method, however imperfectly worked out, from the essentially destructive method of Hume.

Those who have profited by this author's well-known Human Nature in Politics will welcome this volume, which is also written "with the purpose of bringing the knowledge which has been accumulated by psychologists into touch with the practical problems of present civilized life." By the "Great Society" is meant the organization of society in our time, transformed as it has become, in the extent and in the interdependence of its members, as a consequence of the industrial revolution. After outlining his main psychological positions, Professor Wallas considers in separate chapters the significance for the Great Society of habit, fear, pleasure-pain, crowd psychology, love and hatred, and the thought processes. While the importance of each of these is found to have been exaggerated by a different school of social philosophers, all, except perhaps fear, are to some extent practically desirable as agencies of social control.

The "crowd psychologists"—Bagehot, Tarde, Le Bon, and Ross—as well as McDougall, come in for particular criticism. It is shown that 'imitation,' 'suggestion' and 'sympathy' are loose descriptive phrases and lack scientific precision. In opposition to McDougall it is contended that the various thought processes are equally innate with the instincts, and in no way