Page:Philosophical Review Volume 24.djvu/594

578 "Das All lebt" refers to the life of the whole. In this sense his theory is vitalistic, but it does not violate the concept of unity by postulating a distinct life principle, as do some vitalist theories. Schelling's elaborate imaginings may seem at first sight decidedly fictitious, but they are founded on observation of fundamental experience, such as that of artistic creation, and are above all significant for their insistence on the unity of nature.

The great work of William de Greef was in studying, illuminating and supplementing the theory of social progress. Basing his study on a critical examination of four pairs of thinkers—Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus and Lucretius, Pascal and Condorcet, Kant and Compte—he concludes that no theory has value unless viewed in its historic setting and taken in connection both with those which precede and those which follow it. Thoroughly imbued with the historical spirit, de Greef finds that theories conform to the temper and conditions of the age which calls them forth; eras of rapid progress are eras of optimistic theories, while eras of relative stagnation deny the reality of human progress. He himself is an ardent believer in progress. His principal original contribution to the theory of social evolution is, somewhat paradoxically, his theory of regression. In this field he has supplemented and confirmed Spencer's formulation of the course of development from the simple to the complex, by showing that when decay sets in, as in the case of social institutions which have outlived their suitability to the social environment, the movement is the logical reverse of that which Spencer describes. De Greef insists, however, that the disintegration of established social structures is always due to change in environmental conditions, and is preparatory and a necessary means to further growth along better lines. This thesis he illustrates by numerous examples of apparent regression in the fields of economics, art, philosophy, the sciences, politics, etc. In all cases he finds the retrogression a condition of progress. Two main enemies of the general advance of social evolution noticed by de Greef are economic inequality and the danger of war. The exploitation of man by man is analogous to parasitism, while war directly involves the return to lower stages of civilization, and is the greatest menace of the modern social order.

When and to what degree are aesthetic judgments respectively objective and subjective? Let us define the beauty of an object as constituted by the totality of its attractions when there is found among them an agreeable visual or auditory sensation. We are then in a position to consider all the arts. A