Page:Philosophical Review Volume 27.djvu/543

No. 5.] being of the latter is eternal, so may be the being of the former. A consciousness of this kind must, however, be supposed to live in its creations, and would thus participate in the time order that belongs to them. We must think of the process, it would seem, as the continuous unfolding of a plan that has eternal significance and beauty, and that leads up to a definite end. The end would presumably consist in the full apprehension of the significance and beauty of the whole. The reaching of the end, it would seem, would imply a return to the beginning. The wheel would have come full circle. The order of before and after would be completed, and the completion would consist in the whole being apprehended as present. It would be at once the end and the beginning of the unfolding order, which in itself would be eternal" (p. 451). This we may round off by a further suggestion: "It might perhaps be conjectured that there is always some spirit occupying the attitude of contemplation of the perfect whole, from which it then descends to take part in the downward and upward path. The abiding One would thus be an attitude or point of view rather than a person; and it would appear that we ought to assume that this attitude could in the end be reached by every real spirit" (p. 438). Here we are unmistakably passing from the realm of well-grounded theory to the gropings of Platonic myth. Still, it is not merely idle to think of human life as "the partial manifestation of the life of an eternal spirit—or perhaps rather of a number of such spirits—having its significance in the gradual attainment of an attitude from which the perfection of the whole can be apprehended and appreciated" (p. 445). I fear there will be little rejoicing in the Neo-Realistic heaven, for the repentance of this Idealistic sinner is clearly only skin-deep.

In Moral Values Professor Everett has given us what seems to the reviewer the best text-book on ethics that has yet appeared. It is written with great clearness. And this is well, for no text-book in this field, produced in our generation, has reached an eminence which justifies the expenditure of the labor of a body of commentators. In choice of subject matter and manner of treatment it is likely to raise and hold the interest alike of the undergraduate and the general reader. The style is attractive, and many things are exceedingly well said. The author is catholic in spirit and at the same time is very