Page:Philosophical Review Volume 9.djvu/554

538 that of Schopenhauer. To the former experience was a whole, and existed for the subject as the ultimate reality. To the latter experience existed for volition, and ultimate reality was to be found in practical rather than theoretical activity. The term existence, then, imparts to the former an object for intelligence, and to the latter an object or end for the will. Münsterberg in Psychology and Life adopts the point of view of will as ultimate reality, and so identifies himself with Schopenhauer. His position then is novel only in this, that he is the first to attempt a systematic criticism of categories from the point of view of will as the Hegelians had attempted from the point of view of reason. The sciences, he says, proceed by abstraction, each under its own category. Psychology deals abstractly with sensations regarded as atomistic elements. As such it can never attain to the reality of life, the real will itself. And similarly with other sciences which deal with phenomena which are external to consciousness. Psychology then will be of but little value to those who deal with real life, such as the teacher and the historian. To think that life can be interpreted in terms of our science would be psychologism, while to force upon science the views of real life would be mysticism. Each interpretation has its own proper place, though the will side of reality is ultimate. The psychologist then does not investigate the real will, but a highly artificial substitute of it. This leaves the real will, as with Schopenhauer, blind and unintelligible. But in reaching this conclusion reason has been employed, and logical thinking has been assumed as valid. Hence the difficulty of building on any other foundation than reason. This is the weakness of the Schopenhauerean position, and we can only hope for a completion of Hegel's view to guide us to the true nature of ultimate reality.

The Idea is divided into stages entitled Life, Cognition, and the Absolute Idea. Life applies not only to living beings, but to all reality. The unity required by the category of Life must be such as to provide for plurality. The unity must be complete in each individual, and yet must be the bond which unites them. It must be in the individuals and also for the individuals. This leads to Cognition, in which alone this becomes possible. But consciousness would be a better name than cognition. Only in consciousness can there be a unity which is at once the whole of which the individuals are parts, and which is also completely present in each individual. This category, however, seems rather a synthesis of the difficulties of the former category, Life, than an antithesis, as it should be by its place in the triad. But the subordination of the triadic form does not impair the validity of the transition. Cognition is, then, the true synthesis of the contradictions of life. But its unity is not itself