Page:Philosophical Review Volume 31.djvu/543

No. 5.] freshness of her poetic intuition. Yes, he says, the first Lelio is well worthy a Faust, and so on. It must be confessed that the German poet was not immune to the disease of mysticism in his earlier period; but he certainly seems to have recovered from Sturm and Drang before very long; and calm reason came into her own. "Wenn sich der Most noch so absurd geberdet, es giebt zuletzt doch noch 'nen Wein." Many of his fellow countrymen have blamed him for his lack of political enthusiasm. As to the relative worth of the first Lelia and Faust,—well, a goodly company prefers Faust.

{{hi|Divine Imagining: An Essay on the First Principles of Philosophy. By {{sc|Douglas Fawcett.}} London, Macmillan & Co., 1921.—pp. xxviii, 249. It is with a wavering mind that the reviewer undertakes to introduce to the readers of the Philosophical Review Mr. Douglas Fawcett's second exposition of his metaphysical enthusiasm. Divine Imagining is a briefer book than The World as Imagination, designed partly to clear away some of the misunderstandings in suite of the larger volume, but mainly as a more direct exposition of the author's views. To be sure he disposes of the past, but in a fashion so summary that its speed is quite breathless,—not, let me haste to add, that Mr. Fawcett is unappreciative of the foundations laid by his metaphysical predecessors; he is gracious and at times tender; but his eyes are above,—toward the fane at the apex of the pyramid, and indeed his hand is already on the curtain which screens the Holy of Holies,—so why look backward?

It is here that the reviewer's heart is torn. The author's very attitude pleads for sympathy and enthusiasm. It is no small thing nowadays to have a conviction, a metaphysical conviction, that at length things first and last are at the instant of revelation. As he himself says, why be concerned with the veils that glamour the goddess when the glories of Neith are about to be exposed? Mr. Fawcett is superbly self-convinced and one cannot but feel that the bubble of his conviction is a thing too beautiful in itself to be lightly pricked. Even in his heartless moments he is engaging: "The queen-bee," he says, "has been described as visiting the cells of immature queens and destroying potential rivals. The World as Imagination provides a case of similar tactics. We selected a number of representative types of thought directed toward the solving of the world-riddle and pointed out their fatal defects. Having stung these rivals, it was hoped, to death, Imaginism was able to pass into the foreground and claim exclusive attention."

Furthermore, there is much in Mr. Fawcett's philosophy that—with this reviewer at least—commands assent. He is pleading for the (metaphysical) reality of a complex world, not a simplified one. He is impatient of {{smallrefs}}