Page:Philosophical Review Volume 30.djvu/545

No. 5.] A reference to Burke's A Vindication of Natural Society (p. 182) is misleading in that it leaves the impression that the author was actually attacking organized society, whereas the truth is that he was ironical, intending his argument as a reductio ad absurdum of Lord Bolingbroke's defense of natural religion (Deism).

Yet in spite of these limitations and defects, Professor Bury's book will repay reading. It contains lucid and valuable discussions of thinkers whom students of philosophy should know. He quotes more than is necessary, but his quotations are usually apposite. The book is interesting reading because aptly and felicitously expressed.

In the Epilogue Professor Bury turns prophet. "A day will come, in the revolution of centuries, when a new idea will usurp the place of the idea of progress as the directing idea of humanity. Another star, unnoticed now or invisible, will climb up the intellectual heaven, and human emotions will react to its influence, human plans respond to its guidance. It will be the criterion by which progress and all other ideas will be judged. And it too will have its successor" (p. 352). Will the attainment of this new idea which is to supplant the idea of progress mean that the human race has progressed? This is a question which not only Professor Bury, but all other devotees of progress, who have not fallen under the spell of the 'illusion of finality', might well ponder. For if they answer it affirmatively, the theory of the relativity of the idea of progress is contradicted, but if they answer it negatively, they take a position not far removed from the much-maligned cycle theory of the ancients.

.

The reader will examine a book with such a title in the fear of being insulted by some fantastic half-thinking. He will be surprised and gratified to find this book is full of clear thinking and lucid expression. The author challenges the reader's attention from the first page to the last with a kindly, humane purpose which he happily expresses as "the higher agnosticism—the faith that is so secure that it does not ask to be formu- lated" (p. viii). Secrets of happiness are usually shouted in the street as patent medicines are sold at the fair. This secret of happiness comes with the persuasive force of the still small voice.

Part I is an analysis of the passing of the feudal order. In feudalism the hope of happiness centers in externality and force. Part II undertakes the more difficult task of interpreting modern science, especially modern biological science, in other than feudalistic terms. Externality is written large in scientific discussion and research. Force is the god of "heredity and environment." Faith in the validity of the internal categories rests