Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/479

418 ground for viewing Nature objectively as the manifestation of a creative Divine mind, akin to the human mind that re-creates it in thought. But this our logical construction of Nature is transformed by the author into the real object of which it is but the shadow. Souls are affirmed not only to be coexistent with God, but also co-creators with him.”

Now it is just this last point, however, that shows the universally social (that is, the public and objective) aspect of my idealistic interpretation of Nature. I no more teach a merely subjective basis for Nature than my reviewer does. The difference is, that he is in the habit, whether consciously so or not, of finding the objective aspect of the world in the efficient causality of God alone, while I find it in the harmonious cooperation of all the eternal minds, including God as the Final Cause, or Supreme Ideal, to which all are rationally attracted. But let readers consult my pages xx-xxii, and compare them with my pages 361-369. I no more explain Nature without the moral world of all spirits, nor without God, than my reviewer does, nor than traditional theology and past philosophy have done. The difference is that I introduce these by the new principle of Final Causation instead of by the old one of Efficient, and thus at once secure a consistent and pure idealism, avoid the impasse of Natural Dualism, and clear the problem of the anti-moral burdens involved in monism on the one hand and in dualistic monotheism — monarchotheism — on the other.

In fine, the reviewer's closing criticism arises from his failure to take in my total view. Perhaps it is too much to expect, that, with its many unaccustomed elements, this view should at once be grasped. I ought to say, too, that the objective aspect of my form of idealism, shown in its principle of social recognition and harmony, is the aspect least worked out in the book; the entire doctrine of the