Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/482

Rh putable. But only some of us set this pluralism forth by an idealistic method, and hence arrive at what we call the “eternity” of the many minds. By this we mean simply their absolute reality, or the self-based, self-active nature of their being, — nothing else at all, except as something else may be implied by this absoluteness; least of all, do we mean merely their everlastingness, their existence “from all eternity,” as the common saying is. Our doctrine has nothing whatever to do with the superstition, born of fancy, about preëxistence. In this matter I suppose Mr. McTaggart to be in entire accord with me, and I am therefore somewhat surprised to note in his review certain misapprehensions of my position. These I will now specify.

(1) He speaks of my doctrine that only an eternal being can really be free, as a “remark.” This language is seriously misleading; the reader must surely get from it the impression that my statement of this view is merely incidental and by the way. On the contrary, it is in fact basic and central to the whole theory of my book, is developed with emphatic prominence, and is argued out with much detail. (See my pp. 326-343.)

(2) A more important misapprehension is this: “It [the system of Personal Idealism] offers a God of whom personality, morality, and affection can reasonably be predicated, since, though perfect, he is finite. (I am not sure if the author would accept the word ‘finite,’ but in effect, it seems to me, he holds God to be finite, since he makes him one of a community of spirits, each of whom has ‘a reality as inexpugnable as his own.’)”

Indeed I do not accept the word, nor can. I am surprised that my real view in this matter should have escaped Mr, McTaggart. So far from holding God to be finite, I hold, and in the book clearly teach, that all minds are infinite (in the true qualitative sense of the word), and God