Page:Philosophical Review Volume 8.djvu/229

213, to find causes and substances, are vain abstractions. This position seems to M. Halleux not wholly false, but rather an exaggeration of the truth. It is true that all knowledge comes from sense, but yet by reflection upon this we do reach general principles which are valid. It must be admitted that sensuous knowledge is by nature imperfect and external, failing to reach the 'inner nature' of things, but still there is a reality to be known, and in some measure our thought gets at the nature of that reality.

The reasoning by which these conclusions are reached is neither very original nor very convincing, but there is in it a smack of individuality which often gives it interest. The main line of argument is somewhat as follows: sensuous knowledge is external and phenomenal, because in any object of knowledge, e.g., a man, all the sensuous qualities are continually passing away, while the man himself remains; there must then be an inner nature, an essence, not revealed to sense, which is the nature of the thing in itself, and remains ever the same. But secondly, an examination of general thinking reveals the fact that it is just such an essence as this which it seeks to know; our concept 'man' is that of the type, the genus, which is ever identical with itself, even though it constantly appears in the multitudinous accidents of sense. It follows therefore that general thinking, in part at least, escapes phenomenality and strives after the essential nature of things as they are. Here is a very satisfactory conclusion, but the way to it does not seem wholly clear or unobstructed. One would ask, first, for more light upon the statement that the 'type' or 'essential nature' which remains the same throughout a man's life is the true nature of the man in any other sense than is any passing modification of his being. And secondly, if the sensuous qualities do not reveal the true nature, it is not at all evident how the concept, which is avowedly only an abstraction from these, can do so.

As might be inferred from the title, The Gospel According to Darwin is a comparison of modern theology, especially that of the Calvinistic type, with the conclusions deduced by the author from the theory of Darwinism. In place of the modified Manichæism of Dante and Milton, it proposes to instal the doctrine of the actual effective omnipresence and omnipotence of the good. In opposition to the dogma of total depravity, it calls attention to the fact that vice is for the most part but virtue misapplied. Current views of death it would rob of their horror, by showing that they are based on misunderstanding or exaggeration. Finally, in contrast with the hope of "an indefinite prolongation of our petty personal existence," we are pointed to the glory of membership in the Choir Invisible. The exposition of these familiar doctrines cannot be pronounced either critical or coherent