Page:Philosophical Review Volume 7.djvu/228

214 is, moreover, social. "All content which can be systematized within the self is social." Mr. Bosanquet is in this very modern—in touch with the 'social psychology' of the sociologists, and with the work of investigators like Professor Baldwin. I have mentioned at once this idea of the content of the self being social. It is to be found rather at the end of the book, and between the lines; but it is still one of the achievements of the book. But the main matter of the book is a successful attempt to show the bearing of the work of Ward, James, Stout, and Münsterberg, upon the psychology of ethics. As to the 'operative content' of the soul, Mr. Bosanquet uses with skill all the solid work of Ward and Stout on the contents of the 'presentation masses,' the 'psychoses' and the 'appercipient masses' that constitute the working self; and as to 'ideo-motor action' he applies to moral action the ideas of James and Münsterberg, Herbart and Lotze, and others. He adopts Ward's conception of a totum objectivum which is gradually differentiated into distinct presentations; the Herbartian theory of 'sub-conscious presentations;' the 'organic sensations' of Bain and the physiological psychologists—all that "embraces our whole psychosis as a single experience." These various things make up the self, and the world of the self. So the self and its contents cannot be separated from the physical world, from the world of beauty, the world of 'ideas,' the world of moral 'tendencies,' the world of social effort. The 'growth of consciousness,' and of 'self-consciousness,' and the 'organization of intelligence' are freshly and successfully described in a series of chapters. The transition from consciousness to self-consciousness is a 'social evolution.' The "search for an innermost self, a sacred holy of holies in one's self which never changes and is never obtruded upon, is hopeless." One of the best and most skillful parts of the book is the passage (pp. 89-92) where the fact that the self's content is 'ideas of experience' is reconciled with the fact that the self's content consists of purposes and tendencies. It shows us how a quasi hypothetical judgment is implied in the moral volition. "All general moral judgment, then, except the judgment on things to be done, is hypothetical, and useful only as a sort of first approximation to actual circumstances (p. 113)."

The bearing of modern psychology on the question of the relation of soul and body, is kept in view throughout. We have to suppose "not that the spiritual element begins at a given point in nature, but that the whole process of nature is capable of being instrumental to the development of that which is of spiritual value." As already indicated, Mr. Bosanquet goes as far as he well can in tracing to environment almost all that is characteristic of the self. Like Professor Titchener, he holds that our emotions cannot be defined in themselves, but only in respect of their presentative (objective) elements. Sympathy, too, is explained by him objectively, by the fact that the "content of the self is social," that our life is the life of others. Where is a man's self, if he lose friend, reputation, calling?