6 883 83 UC-NRLF $B MS m? V . - . . ;. ,^- Absolute Idealism and Immortality By JESSE WINECOFFE BALI LINCOLN, NEBRASKA l'>07 .';^- in 2007 with funding from y Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/detalls/absoluteidealismOOballrich Absolute Idealism and Immortality By JESSE WINECOFFE BALL U A Thesis presented to the graduate faculty of the Unirersity of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Nebraska June, 1907 32> I FOREWORD This thesis claims to be no more than its title indicates, a discussion of the problem of immortality from the standpoint of absolute idealism. Or rather it is an attempt to evaluate the motives in absolute idealism which have a bearing upon the doctrine of immortality, whether negative or affirmative. It therefore does not aim at presenting the historical or the theo- logical argument for immortality, but confines itself to the metaphysical. Certain currents of recent thought, mainly naturalistic, make such a discussion timely. The trend of naturalistic sci- ence has revealed a decided tendency to cast doubt upon the persistence of personality after death if not to discredit it altogether. It is impossible to be wholly indifferent to dis- cussions which would invalidate the most cherished beUefs of mankind. An examination of the foundation principles upon which the sciences themselves rest, reveals the fact that these display the leadership of certain regulative ideals, that science at bottom rests upon faith, although, indeed, upon the thoroughly rational belief that the world displays the activity of a Mind whose thoughts we are permitted to interpret. The belief in immortality is similarly grounded and in its influence upon mankind equally displays the ultimate Reality. Our govern- ing ideals are among the most real things in life. Among those ideals is the historic, the universal beUef in immortality. Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made of many helpful suggestions in the preparation of this thesis from Prof. E. L. Hinman, Prof, of Logic and Metaphysics, in the University of Nebraska. LincOi-; Neb., June 15, 1907. 228330 1908 The Woodruff-Collins Press Lincoln, Neb. INTRODUCTION I ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF IMMORTALITY. — A— The Standpoint of Absolute Idealism. I. Its hold upon the philosophic world 1 1 . Its indebtedness to Hegel and its independence of him 1 2 . Its contest with naturalism and general sym- pathy with the historic culture concepts 3 3 . Its power to discuss an idealistic concept by analyzing the implications of positive science, and by thus showing the idealistic conception in question as affirmatively involved in the world as known 3 II. Its logical structure 4 1. Its monism, "concrete," "spiritualistic," "con- crete universal," "organic unity." Its war- fare on abstractions ••... 4 2. Its recognition of the ideality of finite con- sciousness. The leadership of the universal in science, art, ethics and religion 6 3. Ultimate Reality interpreted in terms of the Absolute reading of the ideality of our finite con- sciousness. Degrees of reality 7 F — B— The Problem of Immortality. I . The import of the conception 9 1 . The positivist conception of subjective immor- tality 9 2. The pantheistic conception of submergence of the individual in the Absolute 10 VI CONTENTS 3 . Metempsychosis or transmigration of souls .10 4 . Import of the conception in its popular form 11 a. Permanent self -identity of the individual human life. b. In a genuine sense the continuation of the life of the present. c. Death an event in life, not the end of life. d. The life beyond the fulfillment of the pres- ent life. II. The resources of absolute idealism for the affirma- tive treatment of the conception of immortality .... 12 1 . Less emphasis upon the time-space element than the popular view 12 2 . The affirmation of an ''eternal/' spiritual factor in the conscious life of man 12 3 . Its positing of spiritual things as absolute and and final 13 4 . Its historical spirit 13 5 . Its doctrine of the reality of the ideal 14 III . The traits of absolute idealism which make for a negative or obscuring treatment of the concep- tion 14 1 . The domination of the universal over the finite individual 14 2 . The denial of the finality of time 16 [IV. £)esirability of a more harmonious adjustment of these seemingly adverse motives within absolute . • idealism 16 CHAPTER I THE IDEALISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY. — A— The Human Self Defined Through the Unity of Purpose. I . Aristotle's conception of human individuality 18 II . Modern idealism 20 1 , Its emphasis upon the systematizing elements in knowledge and in all facts 20 CONTENTS . Vil 2 . Leibniz' doctrine of mind as a will-center 20 3 . Hegel's development of idealism 21 4 Human individuality as defined by contempo- rary writers 22 a. Unsatisfactory use of terms self, person, individual 22 b. The human self an ideal ' . . . 22 (1) Self-identity in terms of continuity of purpose. (2) How one self is distinguished from other selves. c. Society as an individual 23 (1) Enlargement of self, of child, parent, man of business, citizen. (2) Society as one inclusive individual. d. The human race as an individual 25 (1) Organic relation of persons and families through heredity. (2) Growth of world-consciousness. (3) The interests of individuals coex- tensive with those of mankind. Resume. e . The Absolute as the completed individual .... 26 (1) Human life an aspect of the divine. (2) The Absolute as a personal being. — B— Difficulties of the Teleological Conception of Mind. Mind as Relative 27 I . The finite individual and the Absolute. Royce's definition of the individual 28 1 . The human self defined in terms of meaning and purpose of the Absolute 28 2 . How the element of uniqueness is conserved 29 3 . The Absolute as a self all-inclusive 30 4 . a. In criticism, the elements of uniqueness not sufficiently safe-guarded by Royce 30 b. The truth that "in God we live and move and have our being" does not necessarily involve identity of thought and will 31 via CONTENTS c. This full identity endangers ethical distinc- tions that are fundamental 31 d. Royce's failure to provide an adequate ground in the individual for the will and purpose whose uniqueness is essential to his theory 32 e. The individual an existent, greater than the sum of his thoughts and purposes, related to the Absolute by inclusion in the latter, rather than by identity 33 f. His will therefore free even to oppose the Eternal, however ineffectually in the end 34 II . The apparent instability of the organic unity of mind 34 1. Questions raised by facts of ''multiple personality." 34 2 . Study of these comparatively recent. Hence conclusions can scarcely be considered final 34 3 . Lines of dissociation mainly follow tastes and moods. Dissociated states capable of being resolved back into primary states 34 4 . Possible extent of dissociation 35 5 . The range of the subconscious life far greater than usually supposed 35 6. The development of secondary selves tends to definition of the individual as ''the organized ex- pression of special functions and capacities.'^ The personal "I" an index of personality voicing the predominant state 36 7 . Causes of dissociation and its general effects 36 8 . May it be that, with removal of physical organism these and all other suppressed purposes will come to normal expression 36 CHAPTER II THE HUMAN MIND AND THE NATURAL ORDER I. The finite individual and the physical universe. 38 1 . The eternity of mass and energy in contrast with the ephemeral nature of the physical individual ... 38 CONTENTS IX 2. The application of the categories of physical sciences to human life and development 39 II . The apparent dependence of mind upon the body 40 1 . The problem grows out of the close and intimate relation of mind and body 40 2 . Is this dependence final? 40 3. Need of closer definition of the terms of the problem 41 III . The body 42 1 . The popular view 42 a . Recognizes reality of both mind and body. b. But is dualistic. 2 . The naturalistic view 42 a . Connects the body with organic life in general. b . Critique of naturalistic view. Idealistic ele- ments involved. 3 . Idealistic view 45 a . An objective expression of mind through which experience arises in perceptive life. b . Exists for and is sustained by the Absolute. c. Possesses a relatively low degree of reality. IV . The mind 46 1 . The popular view of mind, the center of person- ality, intimately connected with the body but never completely so 46 2 . The naturalistic view of mind 46 a . Mind as product of brain activity. b . Criticism of this view. 3 . The idealistic view of mind 47 a . Manifestation of mind in imperfect expression. b . Defined in terms of teleology. c . In close relation with physical objects which, like mind itself, are maintained by the Absolute. V . Mutual relations of body and mind 48 1 . Difficulty of defining satisfactorily 48 2 . Need of keeping in view that body and mind are manifestations of the Absolute in different de- grees of reality. Their relations not necessarily parallel 49 X CONTENTS 3 . The true relation to be found in some form of in- teractionism. Bradley's conclusions 49 4 . Nevertheless the mind being the more complete expression of the Absolute is more fundamental than the body and capable of surviving it 5U CHAPTER III THE ETERNAL LIFE AND THE FLOW OF TIME I . The ideas of worth and permanence in early con- ceptions of eternal life 51 1 . The ideas of worth and permanence seeking har- monious expression 2 . Immortality among the Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle 51 3 . The Persian hymns and pra3^ers 53 4 . The Hebrew Psalms 53 II . The Christian conception 54 1 . Nature of eternal life 54 2 . Implications. Man's capacity to receive the divine gift 55 3 . Over-individual aspects of human life 55 III . Eternal life defined with over-emphasis upon value .... 56 1 . Spinoza's doctrine of immortality 56 2 . The conception of Mtlnsterberg 57 a . Human Ufe beyond time. Time a creation of mind. b . Science likewise created by mind and can give no information of our true self. c . The real personality found in will-attitudes . d . Mind as expression of value is uncaused. e . Relation to the Absokite. 3 . Criticism of Mtinsterberg 59 a . Obscurity of his doctrine. b . Individuality dissipated in the Absolute . c . Over-emphasis upon value. IV . Temporal aspect of eternal life 60 1 . Need of clearer presentation 60 2 . Unreality of time as presented by Taylor 60 CONTENTS XI 3. Reality of time, the view of naive realism and pragmatism 61 4 . Mediating position of Watson 61 5 . Time as ''a sublated form within a perfected ex- perience." 62 6. The eternal expresses itself in the temporal, otherwise an abstraction 63 The eternal life the fulfillment of the present. CHAPTER IV THE REALITY OF THE IDEAL. I . The ideals of science and knowledge 64 1 . Science presupposes a rational order in the world ... 64 2 . It results from processes of idealization 65 3 . Knowledge in any sense is possible only through the activity of the universal mind within human thought 66 4. How scientific knowledge advanced. It is pri- marily a faith. But the degree of verification of that faith shows the scientific to be a true ex- pression of Reality 66 II . Immortality as an ideal of reason 68 1 . It is likewise rests on faith in the rational order of the world. The reasonableness of this faith .... 68 2 . The persistence of the belief. Practically uni- versal 68 3 . Its cultural value and influence 69 a. Influence of the ideal as a social factor. (1) in overthrow of slavery and every form of human servitude; (2) in the creation of asy- lums for orphans, the aged, blind, insane and the like; (3) in reformatories, industrial homes and generally in efforts to reform and care for convicted persons; (4) in systems of public instruction ; and (5) in efforts to estab- lish international peace 70 XU CONTENTS b. Influence of immortality upon poetry and the fine arts 71 (1) Method by which poetry attains its end. (2) Themes of music, painting, etc., drawn from human destiny. c. Presence of the ideal of immortality in morals and religion 72 (1) The ethical ideals eternal verities. v2) The note of permanence involved in moral and religious movements for reform . 74 4. Reality involved in the ideal of immortality as as truly as in scientific ideals. INTRODUCTION ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF IMMORTALITY. A The Standpoint of Absolute Idealism. I. Its hold upon the philosophic world. Its indebtedness to Hegel and its independence of him. Its contest with naturalism and general sympathy with the historic culture concepts. Its power to discuss an idealistic concept by analyzing the implications of positive science and by thus showing the idealistic conception in question as affirmatively involved in the world as known. II. Its logical structure. Its monism, "concrete," "spiritualistic," "concrete universal," "organic unity." Its warfare on abstractions. Its recognition of the ideality of finite consciousness. The leadership of the imiversal in science, art, ethics and religion. Ultimate Reality interpreted in terms of the absolute reading of our finite consciousness. Degrees of reality. I. Its hold upon the philosophic world. The influence of a system of thought upon any age may be due either directly to the system itself, or indirectly to its gen- eral point of view. The system itself usually bears in a marked degree the peculiarities of its founder. The general point of view, however, is apt to have wider relations to the general development of thought which the founder of the system has succeeded in bringing to a focus. 1. Absolute idealism traces its descent from the philosophy of Hegel. It would be a mistake, however, to identify it fully with the system of Hegel; for in adopting this genei*al point of view it by no means adopted the details of his system in their entirety. It has, on the contrary, developed a considerable degree of independence of its founder. In Germany the Hege- lian system took root at once. But presently it gave rise to conflicting parties. In the controversies which thus arose over the application of its principles in particular directions the special significance of the Hegelian point of view was largely lost. In England and America it has exerted a greater influ- ence.* It was introduced into England by Dr. Hutchison »See The Heg^iftn Point of View, by J. S. Mackenzie, Mind, n. s. p. 54.S. • • • .w . • • • • 2 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY Stirling who sought to propagate the system as a whole. Few of the later exponents of the HegeHan tendency followed him in this respect. Wallace did more than any other to render the works of Hegel accessible to EngUsh readers, but he dealt with him, not so much as the maker of a system, as one who brought out certain large ideas and modes of treatment. T. H. Green is justly regarded as having been a leading representative of Hegelian thought, yet he too was far from being a close ad- herent of the Hegelian system. The same remark holds true of Edward Caird and F. H. Bradley. Bosanquet has followed Hegel more closely. His general attitude, however, is that of one who has absorbed certain leading ideas of the HegeHan standpoint, but has used them with considerable freedom in his own way. These men have been leaders in the philosophi- cal thought of recent times, and may all be classed as exponents of absolut eidealism in one form or another. On this side of the Atlantic the name of Royce is probably more conspicuous than that of any other in the circles of philosophy. With him may be. ranked Morris, Watson and Taylor, all of whom are repre- sentatives of this same school of thought. It has commonly been assumed that an important distinc- tion between German and English speculation has been the appeal of the latter to experience. This, it is now generally admitted, does not accurately point out the difference; for it would be difficult to find systems of philosophy that make a more emphatic appeal to experience than do those of Kant and Hegel. The point of difference lies rather in the emphasis of German thought upon the reality of the universal as expressing the element of identity in difference. In contrast with this there is to be found in English speculation what has been re- garded as a disintegrating atomism, attaining a constructive result in Hobbes and a sceptical result in Hume.^ It should be pointed out, likewise, that this recognition of the universal in more recent English thought, due to German influence, has brought about a remodeling of the treatment hitherto given to certain fundamental questions in logic, in psychology, in ethics and in political philosophy. In logic this result has been accompHshed by Bosanquet and others, following the lead of Bradley. In psychology a similar result has followed the labors of Ward and ^Mackenzie, J. S. The Hegelian Point of View. Mind. n. s. p. 58. INTRODUCTION 3 Stout. In political philosophy the works of Green, Caird, Bradley and Bosanquet have been produced from the same standpoint. The same remark appHes to the works of Green, Mackenzie, Muirhead and a considerable number of others in the field of ethics. ^ The influence of a school is, however, not confined to its direct representatives. It may be extended by other men who, while agreeing with it in the main, have been found among its sharpest critics. And this has frequently happened in the history of thought. The attitude of Lotze toward the philosophy of Hegel was precisely this. He is found in sharp antagonism to it at times, and yet his own system of metaphysics has much in common with that of Hegel. Both directly and indirectly therefore, it has come about that absolute idealism has exerted a ruling influence over a large part of the philosophic world. 2, Two features of this system are worthy of special mention 1 here. It has, on the one hand, conducted a vigorous contest ' with naturalism on account of the attempt of the latter to ex- • plain all events and phenomena in terms of mechanism. No I such explanation, it contends, can ever be adequate or satisfy- ling. But while mechanism is freely recognized by ideaUsm, lit is also pointed out that mechanism is always found in the service of larger ends and purposes. In respect of these idealism lalso contends that naturalism has no sufficient explanation. >n the other hand absolute idealism early disclosed a genuine md profound appreciation of the culture concepts that have Jen historic in developing civilization. It has uniformly dis- )layed a keen interest not only in science, but also in art, ethics ^nd religion. Its genius is that of evolution in the best sense, lot of revolution. 3. From the outset the idealism of Kant and of the Kantian Ichool recognized the mind-given elements in the grouping of ihenomena and in the development of science. But for the jtantian the deeper meaning of the phenomena is unknown. Ve know things as they appear, we can not know them as they are in themselves. The physical world was therefore given over tp the mechanical categories of the understanding, which ad- ijiittedly are powerless to apprehend things in their inner mean- iig. In the sphere of the practical reason or morals, however, was maintained that we come directly upon the noumenal 4 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY world as opposed to the phenomenal. For the practical reason there are directly given certain postulates which theoretical reason can neither demonstrate nor deny. These postulates are native to reason. They are grounded in the moral nature, and essential to its complete expression. These postulates are God, freedom, and immortality. To this arbitrary breaking up of philosophy and throwing all that pertains to the natural world over into the unknown^ the absolute idealist is decidedly opposed. Neither can the activities of the mind be so sharply separated and placed over against each other. The absolute idealist, therefore, seeks a closer analysis of the implications of science and aims to show that the higher and more speculative categories of idealism are directly and affirmatively involved in the world as known. They are in fact the very conditions of its being known. Therefore absolute idealism does not turn over to naturalism the whole world of intelligible experience, meanwhile seeking to conserve in some other way the higher cultural values, or to recoup itself in some transcendental world affirmed for practical reason alone. On the contrary it enters directly into the very structure of science. It aims to show that nature is in fact unintelHgible until the higher categories of idealism have received their due; for these, it claims, are no less signifi- cant for natural science than for ethics, religion, or art. II. Its logical structure. 1. Attention has already been drawn to the common charac- teristic of German idealistic philosophy that of its recognition of the dominant influence of the universal within experience. If it is the merit of German philosophy in general to have brought out the significance of the true universal, it is the merit of Hegel in particular to have laid chief emphasis upon the concreteness of the universal, to point out its living relation to the whole, in short to bring into prominence the solidarity of experience. This, the goal of his dialectic method, rather than the method itself constitutes Hegel's chief value for present day thought. Kant, in bringing out the importance of the thought elemeit in experience had in effect left sensation outside the range )f thought. Its office was to furnish the materials for thougU. INTRODUCTION 5 to work upon. On the other hand, things-in-themselves were even more beyond the range of thought activity and inaccessible to it. The intellectual element in experience was in this way rendered mainly formal. Its business was considered to be that of bringing the particulars, accumulated through sense-perception, into the unity of thought. Hegel, on the other hand, took an entirely different view of the matter. The manifold of sense in the meaning of Kant he did not admit. In consequence he did not regard the task of thought to bring unity into it, or to make experience one. For him it is already one. The office of thought is to bring out the systematic con- nection implicit in experience. From this standpoint it will readily be seen that the universals which have value for us are principles which arise out of the materials of experience, not any abstract formal principles brought to it. These principles absolute idealism seeks to discover and to bring to suitable recognition. This style of thinking has a direct connection with that of Kant. It has even been supposed that this was what Kant himself was really aiming at. But his doctrine of 1 the structure of knowledge, namely that it is the work of thought to bring into unity, by means of categories discovered thrDugl^ analysis of the judgment, the various disconnected materials supplied by the senses, led to quite a different result. He was led to introduce the imagination as a mediating faculty between the contrasted elements of sense and those of thought. A closer study led Hegel to reject this whole line of treatment of the problem of knowledge. The Kantian manifold of sense seemed to him mythical. Pure sense without an admixture of thought he declared to be "for us thinking beings as good as nothing". But in rejecting the Kantian view that the sense materials are independent of thought until thought brings order and unity into them, Hegel necessarily adopted also a different conception of the office of thought itself. He there- fore came to regard the work of thought as that of interpreta- tion, rather than that of construction. For absolute idealism in general, then, ''sense and thought are no longer opposed except as implicit and explicit; and so the work of thought becomes, in a sense, analytic rather than synthetic — or rather both at once".* ^Mackenzie, J. 8. The Hegelian Point of View. Mind, n. s. vol. 11, p. 64. 6 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY This does not mean that the sense element has lost its sig- nificance or that it has disappeared. The HegeUan position has. it is true, sometimes been so understood, but unjustly. It means that within the elements supplied by sense, as in all others, there are involved universal determinations that can not be interpreted except in the light of thought. This distinction between Kant and Hegel is involved also in their respective views of the world of phenomena and of the world of things-in-themselves. The ground of opposition between the world of phenomena and the world of things-in- themselves lay in the opposition between the sense element and the thought element. If, however, the universal principles of thought are traceable in the materials furnished by sense- experience it is evident that there is nothing excluded from thought's dominion. Some things may indeed be out of the present range of our thinking, so that they are not immediately grasped, but from this it does not follow that they are totally beyond the domain of thought. From the Hegelian standpoint, therefore, thought is conceived as ''the real world rising to consciousness of itself, not as a more or less foreign power im- posing its laws on a partially subjected territory".^ Absolute idealism is, therefore, monistic in structure. The ultimately real is an organic unity, of which the most characteristic type is mind. The all-pervading thought in which the ideals and purposes, which constitute the center and truth of things, in- here and which supplies their structural basis finds its unity in the Absolute. 2. Accordingly the finite consciousness finds in itself the same ideals which it discovers in the world of physical nature and of organic life. It discovers these because of the leadership of the ideals within itself. Because of this fact also science in the first instance is possible. Even half-unconsciously men have assumed in the construction of science that the world exhibits rational order, and that the laws governing the movements of things, or promoting growth and decay, are capable of inter- pretation by the human mind. The successful building up of the various sciences, therefore, fully justifies our confidence in the rational order inherent in things. Nay, if this analysis be correct, it would appear to involve the admission that absolute ^Mackenzie, J. S. The Hegelian Point of View. Mind, n. s. vol. 11, p. 65. INTRODUCTION 7 idealism is the logical foundation of the sciences, that, in short, their very existence furnishes the most cogent evidence of the truth and vitality of an absolute ideal at work in human con- sciousness. Art, likewise, not less than science, is prompted by the leader- ship of the universal; for it is not merely the copying of that which exists. It is more. It seeks in the copy to idealize and perfect that which in the object exists but imperfectly. Thus the painter selects the finest features of his subject and endeavors to present them in ideal form. The sculptor strives toward a type, and that the perfect type, rarely if ever realized outside his art and hardly with perfection even there, so imperfectly do the materials with which he works yield to his purposes. Ethics no less finds itself to be the embodiment of a system of universals which have as their aim the highest expression of character and conduct. Within conscience there speaks, indeed, the voice of organized human society, but over and above this, the voice of the Eternal. Equally with these and more than these religion is the striv- ing after the ideal. It is the craving for fellowship with the author of our being, a voice in the dark it may be, as of "An infant crying for the light And with no language but a cry." It is the call of the ideal within man, the craving for that which is highest and holiest, for fellowship with the divine. From the determining influence of the ideal along these various lines it becomes evident that any development of science which appears to militate against idealistic conceptions is mov- ing wide of the mark and faiUng utterly to give a truly adequate interpretation of the real. 3. Taking the ideality of our finite consciousness then in its deepest significance and its widest possible reading, and combining its various suggestions as to the nature of the ultimately real, drawn from these various sources in science, art, ethics and religion, absolute idealism interprets reality in terms of Abso- lute Mind. This Absolute Mind is at once the source and the completion of those spiritual values which operate within our minds in the building up of culture. In our minds their realiza- 8 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY tion is relative and incomplete. In the Absolute Mind they find their perfection. It follows, then, that in any given stage of existence the nature of the reality therein contained is not completely revealed. That stage of existence is not, however, on that account unreal. It is real only in a lower degree or in a manner more or less shallow. This doctrine of degrees of reaUty is closely related to the AristoteUan doctrine of matter and form. Aristotle conceived that these two never exist separately, but each seeks the other. Though separable in thought they are not separable in fact. The child holds the relation to the full grown man, of matter to form. The latter is the goal of the potential development of the child. Thus a given object may be ''form" for one group of beings, ''matter" for another. The oak is "form" for the acorn, the potential tree. It is ''matter" for the lumber which may be gotten out of it, and this, in turn, becomes "matter" for the table or chair into which it is made. The vegetable upon our table is "form" in relation to the materials which entered into its composition. It is matter with reference to our physi- cal body. This doctrine of degrees of reaUty thus propounded orig- inally in Artistotle's theory of development has been main- tained by Hegel, and by every other writer who has consistently held his point of view. It is essential to a monistic view of the world. From this standpoint no stage of existence short of the absolute is final or complete. All are relative and incom- plete, some more, others less. The inorganic stage of exist- ence is not unreal, it is simply real in a lower degree than the organic. The animal life discloses a fuller degree of reality than the vegetable. Similarly Realityis more completely expressed in man than in the orders of animaUife, and in society and the state or nationstill more completely than in the individual man. All of these are, from the idealistic viewpoint, mere appearances in which the ultimately real is revealed. According to this doctrine, therefore, it may be readily recognized that nature, interpreted at the level common to naturalistic science is interpreted cor- rectly so far as natural science properly goes. The difficulty arises when it is assumed that nature so interpreted is adequately understood. The idealist maintains that the interpretation INTRODUCTION 9 of nature common to naturalistic science overlooks its deeper meaning. The degree of reality therein revealed is too super- ficial to be regarded as final. B The Problem of Immortality. I. The import of the conception. The Positivist conception of sub- jective immortality. The pantheistic conception of submergence of the in- dividual in the Absolute. Metempsychosis or transmigration of souls. Im- port of the conception in its popular form. Permanent self-identitv of the mdividual human life; in a genuine sense the continuation of the life of the present. Death an event in life, not the end of life. The life beyond the fulfillment of the present life. II. The resources of absolute idealism, for the affirmative treatment of the conception of immortality: less emphasis upon the time-space element than the popular view; the affirmation of an eternal, spiritual factor in the conscious life of man; its positing of spiritual things as absolute and final; its historical spirit; its doctrine of the reality of the ideal. III. The traits of absolute idealism which make for a negative or ob- scuring treatment of the conception: the domination of the imiversal over the finite individual; the denial of the finality of time. IV. Desirability of a more harmonious adjustment of these seemingly adverse motives within absolute idealism. I. The Import of The Conception. The term immortality has been accepted in several widely different senses. 1. Least satisfactory of these is that sense in which Auguste Comte and his followers of the Positivist creed spoke of ''the subjective life." Of the cry of Danton upon the scaffold, ''Per- ish my memory, only let my country be free", Comte remarks: "Even in this heroic cry we trace the idea that the outward reward of a great life extends to its subjective immortality. He who truly lived for others should hope to live on, in and by others. This subjective return is purer at once and surer than the objective, for it carries on the services rendered and per- fects the judgment of those services. Under the impulse given by the Positivist spirit, spontaneously and systematically this noble recompense is accessible to all who are capable of under- standing it and deserving it."^ Clothed in the garb of poetic beauty and given an attractiveness which it would not other- wise possess, this conception of immortality speaks eloquently through the famous lines of George Eliot, — ^System of Positivist Philosophy, vol. 4, chap. 1, p. 45, Congreve, tr., quoted by Welldon. 10 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY Oh, may I join the choir invisible, Of those immortal dead A\ho live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity. In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self. In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues. So to live is heaven. To make undying music in the world Breathing as beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of men, * ***** This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. Svich an immortality would have little indeed to offer to that vast multitude, who live out their life's day in obscurity, and who, no less than the illustrious and the martyred, are the true nobility of the earth. The immortality offered by the Pos- itivist, and indeed any immortality depending upon the judg- ment of men, can not but fail to satisfy. How often we judge each other wrongfully if at all! 2. Immortality is sometimes spoken of in a sense which is not individual or in which individuahty is submerged, that is, the individuality of the finite self is lost in the Infinite. This view of the soul, although held by some among modern thinkers, is not modern but ancient. It had its representatives among the Greek and Roman philosophers and poets. There is almost a modern flavor in the sentiment of Euripides, ''The mind of the dead is not alive, yet hath it immortal consciousness, when it hath been merged in the immortal ether. "^ Similarly Virgil spoke of the deity who pervades all things, from whom flocks and herds and men and the wild beasts draw the vital air and into whom at last they all returur The doctrine of the Uni- versal Soul among the ancient Greeks and Romans found its chief representatives among the Stoics. It has had a few ad- herents also among modern philosophers. Even among theolo- gians it claimed no less an adherent than Schleiermacher who 'Helena, 10, 14. INTRODUCTION 11 sought to console a friend of his early youth upon the untimely death of her husband with thoughts better adjusted to this philosophic creed than to the Christian faith. This doctrine fails equally with the foregoing to meet the requirements of human thought and desire, for what is longed for is not submergence in the Absolute, but personal indentity in the life to come. 3. It remains simply to notice that conception of immortal- ity, known as metempsychosis or transmigration of souls. This view has had its stronghold in India among both Brahmans and Buddhists. It has had some acceptance also among other widely scattered peoples, mainly of a primitive stage of civiliza- tion. It has been ascribed to Pythagoras among the Greeks, and according to Herodotus was borrowed from the Egyptians. Among modern philosophers it was held by Fichte. While it conserves in a measure the individual human life, yet in effect it deprives life of its unique dignity. The soul after death is in no closer or more vital relation to its Creator than before. No ultimate harmony between it and the conditions of its being is provided for. Nor can this belief provide for such a har- mony.* 4. As commonly conceived the doctrine of immortality con- templates a permanent self identity of the individual human life. The course of events may serve to resolve the physical body back into the earthly elements of which it is composed. But over the true self, the soul, it has no power whatever. The return of the body to the earth whence it was taken simply serves to set free the undying spirit which continues to live on. The soul therefore does not share the fate of the body. Nor does it undergo a similar fate, that of being absorbed into one fountain of being where its individuality is lost. The universe may scatter the body, but in all our popular thought the soul remains secure in the possession of its individual being, and "We shall know as we are known". The life after death is, therefore, regarded as, in a genuine sense, the continuation of the finite life of the present. The interests of the life to come are conceived as genuinely related to the interests of the present. The guiding motive, the deepest desires, all in short that goes to form character, are considered as finding their fulfillment in the after-life, but in such manner »Cf. Welldon, The Hope of Immortality, Chapter 1, The Nature of the Belief. 12 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY as to be the unfolding, the ever enlarging development of that which had its beginning in the present order. This conception of immortality considers death an event in life, not as the end of life. It contemplates, an identity of personal self-consciousness after death with that before. The life beyond is regarded, therefore, as the satisfaction and complete perfection of the life that is now, in fulness of being of which we can not adequately conceive. II. The resources of absolute idealism for the affirmative treatment of the conception of immortality. 1. It should perhaps be expected that a philosophical discuss- ion of the belief in immortality would place less emphasis upon the tiine element than our popular conception does, and that it would bring into bolder relief the timeless element of the life eternal. We should expect also that it would have little to offer in the way of attempting to image the unseen. How- ever, it is evident that the doctrine of immortality itself is not thus destroyed; for such a discussion seeks merely to lay bare the philosophical foundations of the doctrine. At best the imagery associated with the common conception of the life to come is an effort to present the grandeur of that which tran- scends present experience from that which is noblest and best in the present order, truer in its purpose no doubt than in its fulfillment. What, then, are the resources of absolute idealism for an affirmative treatment of this conception? 2. From its doctrine of the universal operative in human thought it is led to affirm a spiritual factor which is eternal. It is this spiritual factor operative in our thinking which so con- stitutes the norm of thought and reason that its conclusions are accepted as true and valid. It is by no chance or haphazard arrangement that our concepts are formed and group them- selves in those general relations that are common to all normal minds. But this power, working in and through the human mind in all ages, inheres in the Over-Mind or Soul. From its doctrine of the ideaUty of the human conscious- ness, likewise, it is led to conclude to the spiritual factor in man. We can not believe that these ideals are present as illusions, since they are inwrought into the fabric of our most secure INTRODUCTION 13 sciences. They are present to our minds often as the types and suggestions of things subsequently discovered through their leading. They are spiritual in their nature, not material, and can inhere only in a being who is spiritual. 3. In its insistence upon spiritual things as absolute and final the idealistic philosophy is again found to be in line with the implications of the belief in immortality. For it material things are relative. Their status is wholly secondary. The idea of nature as absolute, a system of rigid law, is not a part of its creed. In consequence this philosophy is in more general sympathy with the historic culture concepts which have gone to promote human progress than with those concepts of the ''abstract understanding" whose tendency is to level rather than to build up. 4. In this connection mention should be made of the historical spirit which has always characterized this school of thought. It has constantly manifested a fine appreciation of the positive import of various stages in history and civilization. In this appreciation it has even at times anticipated their subsequent rational grounding and explanation of the stages of history and civilization. The history of philosophy itself, under the treatment of the representatives of this school, came to possess a meaning which is now, indeed, generally accepted but was almost entirely new with it. And while the Hegelian philosophy of history has been found defective in many details it has been fertile in valuable suggestions toward a truer inter- pretation of the progress of human events than existed pre- viously. The question may be raised in this connection, to what extent has the aspiration for immortality been one of the essen- tial culture ideals of humanity? That it has been historic is beyond question. It has been and is now well-nigh universal among men of every stage of civilization. It is true the form of the belief has undergone modification, just as other beliefs of men have been modified, and it may be destined to undergo further change. But the belief itself has been among the most persistent ideals of the race and, all things considered, among the most beneficent. Unless then it can be conclusively shown that this belief is the by-product of some psychological motive and its validity thus overthrown, the absolute idealist can not fail 14 ABSOLUTE IDEALSIM AND IMMORTALITY to take account of it as among the essential culture ideals of humanity. But we shall have occasion to return to this subject. 5. It is especially important to observe also that the doctrine of the reality of the ideal inevitably leads the idealist to take account of the aspiration for an eternal life. Without the as- surance of a life to come the highest aspirations of our being must remain unsatsfied, life itself incomplete, and our noblest ideals unfulfilled. Everything that is best in us, ''bears witness in itself of a power of life and growth far beyond the utmost afforded by the opportunities of earth. These distinctly human quali- ties do not serve any merely physical purpose. They are not useful in the biological sense. If, therefore, the realization of such powers has a purpose, not fulfilled till put forth to full capacity, we must suppose that human existence is constructed on a scale such that each man can put them forth in their full- ness. * * * These ideals are the only things that give value to life. If we have a right to believe anything, we have the strong- est moral and intellectual right to believe that these abide forever."^ Therefore idealism can not be indifferent to this persistent faith of humanity. So long as absolute idealism retains its fundamental principle that the ideal is real and the truly real the ideal, immortality as one of the most persistent of ideals must find a place in its very texture. Otherwise it might as well abandon the task of endeavoring to interpret reality. With the failure of the belief in immortality, ideahsm itself must fail. III. Traits of absolute idealism which make for a negative treatment. It must not be overlooked, however, that there are impor- tant traits of absolute idealism which make for an obscuring, or even a negative, treatment of immortality. 1. The domination of the Universal over the finite individual is such that the latter may appear virtually to lose his individu- ality entirely. At least such is the natural conclusion from the statements of eminent representatives of this system of thought. This position seems in fact essential to an idealistic monism. At no stage either of the beginning or development of the in- *S. H. Mallone, Present Aspects of the Problem of Immortality, Hibbert Journal, II, 725. INTRODUCTION 15 dividual does he appear self-initiated or independent, so com- pletely is he subjected to the universe. It is difficult to see how, as thus expressed, any type of eternal life or absoluteness can be assigned to the finite individual at all. Hegel, himself, points out the dialectical negativity by which every finite some- what is dissolved into being- for-another, and, while this inde- pendent being is finally restored it is restored only in the Abso- lute. The independence of the finite as such is not restored. To like purpose Haldane remarks: ''For there is but one single subject within which all knowledge and all reality fall. With and in that single subject philosophy and faith assure us that we are one."* Again he remarks, "Finite mind is this same (ultimate) Mind in imperfect forms of self-comprehen- sion, self-determinations on the part of the absolute mind, — that are but phases of the activity in which it creates and gathers up the full riches of its concrete self-comprehension. "^ In similar vein A. E. Taylor discusses The Place of The Self in Reality and comes to the conclusion: "In short, unless you are to be content with a beggarly modicum of continuity of purpose too meager to be more than an empty name, you seem forced to conclude that the origination and again the disappear- ance of selves in the course of psychical events is a fact of con- stant occurrence. ******** We seem driven, then, to con- clude that the permanent identity of the self is a matter of degree, and that we are not entitled to assert that the self cor- responding to a single organism need be either single or per- manent. It is possible for me, even in the period between birth and death, to lose my old self and acquire a new one, and even to have more selves than one, and those of different degrees of structure, at the same time. Nor can we assign any certain criterion by which to decide in all cases whether the self has been one and identical through a series of psychical events. Be- yond the general assertion that the more completely occupied our various interests and purposes are the more permanent is our selfhood, we are unable to go."^ What have we here, then, other than that the finite indi- vidual is ultimately dissolved into the Universe, while the only thing that stands fast eternally is this same Universe itself, »Haldaue, Pathway to Reality, vol. 2, p. 248. ^Ibid, vol. 2, p. 256. 'Taylor, A. E., Elements of Metaphysics, p. 353. 16 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY or the Absolute? If we accept statements such as these at their face value we seem driven to the conclusion that when absolute idealism speaks of immortality its fine phrases are uttered with reference not to this or that finite individual but with reference to the Universe as a whole. We have asked for bread and received a stone. The difference between this view of the world and of life and that by which the empirical sciences would ex- plain away everything pertaining to the proper individuality of man is not material so far as the net result to man's true individuality is concerned. In both alike the universe appears to give and take away the life and soul of man. His individual being appears as the wave of the sea that rears its crest for a little while, presently to subside into the great ocean whence it came. 2. Another feature of absolute idealism that appears essential to it and yet obscures, even if it does not deny, the conception of immortality is its denial of time as final in the universe. For the idealist, since Kant at least, time is the a priori condi- tion of our sense-perceptions. It is not independent of the human self or of the mind, but is mind-given. Time is in some sense the product of mind. Hence the mind is greater and exists above and beyond time relations. To get at the truth about such a matter as eternal life, it is maintained by Haldane among others, we must resort to conceptions of a higher order than that of time and only then are we delivered from the dilemma that this life either ends with the grave or continues beyond it. Hegel points out that it is an endless, eternal quality of the soul to be a citizen in the kingdom of God. This, he holds, is a quality and a life which is beyond time and that which is transitory. ''Diesz ist eine Bestimmung und ein Leben, das der zeit und Verganglichkeit entriickt ist, und indem es dieser beschrankten Sphare zugleich entgegen ist so bestimmt sich diese ewige Bestimmung zugleich als eine Zukunft. Die unendliche Forderung, Gott zu schauen, d. h. im Geiste seiner Warheit als einer gegenwartigen bewuszt zu werden,ist fiir das Bewusztsein als das vorstellende in dieser zeitlichen Gegenwart noch nicht befriedigt."* iHegel Werke XII, p. 313. INTRODUCTION 17 The eternal life must be regarded as in some sense the time- less completion of our historic life. One can readily see, how- ever, how the emphasis upon the character of life as timeless or independent of time tends to identify it with the Eternal, as is the case for example with Spinoza. It may be questioned, however, whether emphasis upon the timeless aspect of human life necessarily identifies it with the Eternal and Absolute. It does indeed lead to a statement of the doctrine of immortality such as is likely to arouse the suspicion that the truly human immortality remaining is, if not a form of words, at least ex- ceedingly obscure. But the idealistic doctrine of the timeless life, as it relates to the immortality of the soul, can scarcely be said to deprive the belief in immortality of its real bearings. IV. Desirability of a more harmonious adjustment of these conflicting motives. In view of these considerations it is desirable to secure a more harmonious adjustment of these conflicting motives within absolute idealism with reference to their bearing upon a belief so vita] to human happiness and wellbeing. It should be possible to give all due recognition to the overlordship of the Universal in relation to our finite life without surrendering our confidence in the reality of spiritual values or our recogni- tion of their historic worth as factors in the development of the truest culture. Upon the success of the effort to establish some such harmony rests the hope of making effective head- way against the advance of naturalism at the present time. For that the recent development of the empirical sciences, notably biology and psychology, tends to undermine and over- throw one of the most cherished ideals of mankind is evident to every thoughtful, intelligent person. There is good reason to believe that a careful scrutiny will show that the conclusions of naturalism in this field have been hastily drawn and that the foundations of the ancient faith in the life beyond stand as secure today as ever. 18 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY CHAPTER I. THE IDEALISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN INDIVID- UALTY A. Self Defined as Unity of Purpose. I, Aristotle's conception of human individuality and the present day use of it. II. Modem Idealism. Its emphasis upon the systematizing element in knowledge and in all facts. Leibniz' doctrine of the mind as a will center. Hegel's development of idealism. Human individuality as defined by contemporary writers: unsatisfactory use of terms self, person, indi- vidual; the human self an ideal; how one self is distinguished from other selves; society as an individual; enlargement of self, of child, parent, man of business, citizen; society as one inclusive individual; the human race as an individual, organic relation of persons and families through heredity, growth of world consciousness; resume, the Absolute as the complete individual. Since a proper discussion of immortality necessarily turns upon the conception of Individuality entertained, it is in order to consider at some length the idealistic analysis of the indi- vidual and some of the difficulties which this analysis encount- ers. This conception of the individual early defined itself in terms of purpose. I. Aristotle's conception of individuality. First among philosophers to give anything like an adequate discussion of individuality was Aristotle. For him the primary basis of all realit)'^ is substance, ovo-ta. All other determinations assume this one as fundamental. Substantiality is to be found, not in the matter of things, but in their form or essence. This form or essence is unlike the matter which underlies the exist- ing thing in that it is determinate. The essence alone expresses the specific nature of the thing from which it cannot be separated. The reality is constituted by this conceptual or ideal essence. Neither form nor matter, however, exist per se. They exist as formed matter in the concrete individual. It is important in Aristotle's thought to distinguish between what things are actually, ivepyda and what they are poten- tially Bvvafiu. The potential is the persistent tendency toward the actual, not, however, to an indefinite actual, but IDEALISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY 19 to its own actualized being. The acorn is the possibility of the oak, not of some other tree. The child is the potential man. But oak and man exist also ideally, and this ideal existence is prior to the potential in time and in substance. This ideal is also the ''end" to be realized by the potential. It is the activa principle guiding, as it were, the process of realization. And nothing is to be considered potential which can not realize its ''end". The soul is this realization or entelechy of the body. It is its full development, its earlier perfect realization. It occupies the relation to body which "form" holds to "matter" in Aris- totle's thought. As the first entelechy of the body it possesses life potentially. Applying this principle to the popular conception of the" soul Aristotle regarded the soul as the seat of personality, and as having an existence capable of being separated from the bodily life. However, at this point, involving as it does the persistence of personality after death and the immortality of the soul, he is somewhat obscure. Aristotle's doctrine of the soul exerted a profound influence upon all succeeding thought. It can hardly be considered a spent force even now. His method of viewing the soul was neither introspective exclusively nor empirical alone. He combined the two. He recognized, to a degree which his prede- cessors did not, the relation of body and soul as a subject which the psychologist dare not leave unnoticed. That the greater part of our mental states have a direct relation to the condition of the bodily organs was quite evident to him. However, he was at complete variance with the materialistic psychology of the Atomists, and with all attempts to assign physical attri- butes to the soul. For him, it is only through the soul that it is possible to comprehend or explain the body. It is to be noticed that the procedure of modern psychology is just the reverse. The soul is to be understood through a careful study of the physical states. In consequence the psychology of Aris- totle is inadequate to meet the problems raised by modern psy- chology. In its wider relations the Aristotelian doctrine of the vegetative and sensitive soul fails also to satisfy the require- ments of the present-day biology. A restatement is therefore needed which, while giving full recognition to the established 20 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY results of modern science, will retain the elements of permanent value in Aristotle's discussion of the soul, namely its teleology and its confidence in the reality of the ideal. II. Modern idealism. 1. It is this task which modern idealism has undertaken in opposition to the categories of modern science which attempt to explain all things in terms of mechanism. Modern idealism is throughout teleological, no less than that of Aristotle. It regards all individuality as being expressive of purpose. The degree of reality which is expressed in any given individual is the degree to which the underlying thought is adequately ex- pressed, or rather, perhaps, the degree in which it reveals the organizing universal as Mind. For it holds no less confidently than did Aristotle to the belief that the ideal alone has per- manent reality. It is the ideal, or thought, in things which constitutes them real. Modern ideaUsm lays great emphasis upon the systematiz- ing element in all facts. These facts are not isolated. They have no independent existence, but are closely interrelated in one pervading unity. That unity likewise determines our knowing processes. It is through it, indeed, that our knowl- edge comes to be organized and systematized. The thorough- going character of this systematizing element in knowledge and in all phenomena betrays at once the indebtedness of modern idealism to Aristotle and its point of departure from him. 2. The first among modern philosophers to apply, in the true Aristotelian spirit, the category of purpose to the new knowl- edge being brought forward in the modern age was Leibniz. He rejected the doctrine of substance and matter advanced by Descartes and further developed by Spinoza. For the definition of matter as extended substance he substituted the conception that its power of resistence is the essential quality of matter. He also regarded matter as essentially immaterial. What we call matter is for him an accumulation of centers of force, the^ activity of which is, in the last analysis, spiritual. These centers of force are termed monads. From the lowest of these monads up to the highest there is a continuous series. The life of each is a life of perceptual activity. It is a life of thought, but of thought capable of being vastly confused. This confused IDEALISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY 21 thought characterizes the material monads. Souls, on the contrary, are monads in which there is at least partial self- consciousness. But even in man a part of this soul life is obscure. On account of this confusion the world appears to us as a mate- rial rather than an immaterial world. In reality it is immate- rial, and the only difference between souls and other monads is one of degree. Under this conception whatever develop- ment occurs is brought about by the unfolding nature of the monads themselves, not through any mechanical interaction among them. They are in fact without the means of such interaction. Each is sufficient to itself. The relation of whole and part Leibniz does not conceive as one of greater and less but he conceives that the part contains in itself the whole in such wise that, from within the part, the whole might be entirely unfolded. The part must therefore have within itself a certain spontaneity, which manifests itself through perception and appetition. In so far as it is symbolic of the whole, and is capa- ble of producing the whole, it has perception. In so far as it tends actually to realize itself as the whole it has appetition. Thus the process of change is simply the unfolding of the nature of the several monads. That the unity of the world may not be completely set aside these monads are held together in their mutual relations by the law of pre-established harmony. 3. In Hegel we trace the conception of individuaUty in terms of purpose no less clearly than in Leibniz, although with a some- what different emphasis. Hegel's thought is more rigorously and consistently monistic than that of Leibniz. Indeed in this respect he comes nearer to the position of the great opponent of the latter in the field of philosophy, namely Spinoza. Yet his system is by no means to be identified with that of the lat- ter. For Hegel the element of thought is paramount in all things. It is this which constitutes them real. The degree of reality which any given thing reveals is precisely that degree to which the Supreme Thought is adequately expressed. Di- alectic is not only involved in the human thought and speech, but is involved in all existence. The conception of any given thing suggests at the same time that which is its opposite, which nejgates it. But this opposition is overcome in a higher mode of being. Thought, therefore, in the Hegelian system holds 22 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY much the same place which force or will holds in that of Leibniz. The various individual objects exist in and for the Absolute and are maintained by it to serve various determinate purposes. The human individual, likewise, holds this same relation in the Absolute life. Man's thought is at the same time the thought of the Over-Mind, his will that in which the will of God finds expression. His hfe is the unique expression of a purpose, the progressive attainment of an ideal. But that purpose has its origin and completion within the Absolute. In the sj^stem of Hegel, consequently, the ideal and the real can not be set off in opposition to each other. The ideal is necessarily real. This principle is axiomatic in his system. 4. Human individuality as presented hy contemporary writers. a. In endeavoring to formulate the present thought of ideal- ism in regard to human individuality one is impressed with the limitations of language to express adequately the ideas which it is sought to convey. What meaning shall be attached to such terms as self, person, individual? It is scarcely possible to use any of these in a single sense, or to avoid using them interchangeably. A. E. Taylor, in his Elements of Metaphysics, goes perhaps farther than any other contemporary writer to- ward a well-defined usage of these several terms, but his usage is by no means free from objection since it places too narrow a meaning upon the term self, on the one hand, and, on the other, so restricts his usage of the term person as to deny personaHty for the Absolute altogether. When the terms self, person, individual, stand alone in this discussion they are to be under- stood as employed in the common usage, having reference to the finite individual person, unless the connection requires another shade of meaning. Ordinarily when the idea to be presented is that of the social self, or of society as an individual, or of the Absolute as an individual, the appropriate descriptive adjective will be used. The full meaning of these several terms will appear in the course of the discussion. For the present the general definition of individuality by Prof. Fite will serve our purpose: ''The individual, in the idealistic sense, is the organized expression of special functions and capacities."* b. The idealist, as we have already noticed, defines individu- 'Fite, Warner, Introductory Study of Ethics, p. 219. IDEALISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY 23 ality in terms of purpose. This purpose is germinally expressed even in the infant life. Fite, for example, points out that from earliest childhood the new life has been the expression of purpose even though at that early stage the particular purpose is not yet evident. Notwithstanding, before the child has come to full consciousness, that purpose has already begun unfolding its characteristic life. It makes little difference if subsequent- ly, after choosing a life aim and working toward it for a time, the person comes to feel himself obliged to abandon that aim for another more congenial to his taste, or better adapted to his abiUty. This very change points to the deeper teleology thus working out a purpose or end more congenial to his nature. The mature choice is the self's truest expression. Consciousness is therefore essential to the fullest expression of individuality. When we are most fully conscious we are most ourselves. This principle of self-consciousness is at the same time the principle of self-identity. True personality cannot, therefore, be stated or explained in terms of mechanism. Consciousness is an entirely different principle. The distinc- tion between them is fundamental. The conscious individual is also a rational individual. Con- scious reason determines his activities toward an end which is also self-chosen. He seeks to attain definite ideals. It is at this point that the distinction between personalities enters. We are distinguished from each other because our life aims are different. When, however, it comes to defining more closely what constitutes a life aim or purpose we can not avoid expressing our thought through some one or more univer- sal qualities. It begins, then, to appear a question whether it be truer to say we have ideals or ideals have us. r. Our life-purpose is not immediate to consciousness espe-// cially in youth. Neither is it fully realized at any given moment. Self-consciousness is progressive. Likewise our ideals grow and expand. Death interrupts the process, or at least appears to do so, but who will say that the possibilities of growth have then reached their limit? c. It is not long before the self-consciousness of the child, which has to do mainly with bodily need, is surpassed. The interests of youth broaden. The man of mature years is personally concerned about a variety of things beyond his immediate self, t 24 'Absolute idealism and immortality family, business, state. Social sympathy leads to an ever in- creasing interest in the welfare of others. We come to speak of the social whole, of the social body, of organized society, and the like. This line of thought leads many idealists further to declare that one whose capacities had found full expression, an individual person whose powers were harmoniously developed would be identical with the mind of society itself. This degree of common interests On the part of two or more persons would render them ''absolutely harmonious and identical."^ The conception is thus reached that in reality there are not many individuals, that there is in fact but one. The personal will becomes subservient to social ends. Each one, in so far as he has come to his best estate, has become conscious that his personal interests are those of the social whole. The welfare of society has become his primary concern. Just as the artist or the scientist places everything secondary to his art or to his science, so it is when the social motive has become supreme. The absolute idealist goes even further than this in pointing out the essential oneness of society. He comes to the denial that even our bodily selves are, after all as separate and independent ds they appear.^ A real independence would require that they be thoroughly self-sustaining, as well as self-moved. But this state is never quite realized. Each is dependent upon a wide range of social activities, the child upon the mother from whom it has drawn its life and derives its sustenance, the wife upon the husband, and each individual upon the interaction of social forces related to every other individual. What a variety of relations is brought to bear for example, in the furnishing of bur food supply! The choice viands upon our table have be- come ours through the working of a vast system of related Activities on the part of many men. That we might enjoy the dinner thus served the farmer or stockman has carefully tended his cattle. These have not only grazed upon the pasture but have been fed from the corn supply which was planted, culti- vated, gathered, and shelled by means of a variety of imple- ments that engaged the best thought of many minds to contrive, and the best skill of others to manufacture. The cattle thus »Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, p. 214. , ^ ^ »For a fuller discussion of the social individual compare Fite's Introductory Study of Ethics, pp. 213-217, 220-224. IDEALISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY 25 raised have been sold to the stock-dealer, they have been trans- ported by means of a complex railway system to the packing house, they have been slaughtered and prepared for market by an organized force of workmen which in itself is almost a perfect machine. Thus prepared the product has been transported to the local dealer and there retailed to the consumer. But be- fore you can enjoy your dinner it must be further prepared by the housewife or maid, with the aid of fuel which organized labor and capital have combined to transfer from beneath the earth to your home and fireside. Complete isolation is impossible. d. This interdependence of man upon man and upon the whole of society carried out still farther along the line of heredity discloses the fundamental unity of the human race. The individual is physically related to his parents, each of these in turn to other parents and so on. Tribes exist which have for the most part grown from single families. These tribes related by blood among their individual members, are simi- larly related to other tribes. Interesting illustrations of this tribal relation, growing out of earlier family ties, are easily traced among the Hebrews and surrounding peoples of antiquity. So in a still larger sense nation is related to nation. From Great Britain on the West to India on the East may be traced one common original stock, the Aryan or Indo-European. Following this principle still further we acquire a complete view of the organic oneness of the human family. A similar view or conclusion in regard to the race as an ideal individual may be reached if we take into consideration recent and pending international movements. Such expressions as "class consciousness", and ''national consciousness" have long had a tolerably clear and fixed meaning. Are we not develop- ing at the present time something in the nature of a world con- sciousness? The international congresses convoked among the Christian nations for various purposes during the past century, culminating in the Peace Conferences at the Hague and the machinery devised by them for the adjustment of international differences which threaten war, the numerous international arbitration treaties and many other movements less conspicuous, point to the growth of a world consciousness containing immense possibilities for the future of mankind. It is an ideal that in- 26 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY spires these international movements toward a "federation of the world", one possessing many indications that it is already in process of fulfillment. e. To sum up this discussion of individuality, it has been observed that the distinction of individuals is not mean- ingless nor to be ignored. What the idealist denies is that they are separate and mutually independent. The individual is regarded as "an organized expression of special functions and capacities" which are potentially those of the human race itself. Not all nor indeed many of these capacities become developed in any single individual. The vast majority of them remain latent. Special functions do, however, come to a tolerably full development. How or why the individual came to express the particular functions which have become characteristic of him the ideaUst does not attempt to explain beyond the sug- gestion that the inner life of humanity may somehow exert a determining influence of this character in order that special needs as they arise in the unfolding life of humanity may thus be supplied. Who can tell whether, through the removal of present restraints, these suppressed, unrealized purposes which remain latent in the individual's present life may not attain to a development commensurate with the complete life of hu- manity? Specialization, it is pointed out,* far from being inconsistent with common interests is in fact the most effective means by which these fundamental interests gain realization. Individuality, moreover, is marked by the organization of the interests to be subserved, and the degree of that organization determines the degree of individuality. From the standpoint of humanity the absolute ideaUst de- clares that the one complete individual is the social individual, attaining its full expression in racial unify. This is considered by Fite and others the one complete organism and the only perfect personality. Relative to this whole of humanity, the finite individual is a mere abstraction. As we know him his whole nature is but partially expressed. But the human standpoint is not the final point of view. Above and beyond the human individual, viewed at any level we may choose, there remains a more inclusive, a more perfect »Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, p. 219.i| IDEALISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY 27 and complete individual, in whom all others have their being, the Absolute. All things have their source and goal in Him. f. The discussion of the idealistic analysis of the human indi- vidual culminates, then, in the Absolute Being. The measure of reality in finite individuals is the degree in which the Absolute finds expression in them as the differentiations of its funda- mental unity. Our human lives present aspects of the divine life. In a more profound sense even than St. Paul had in mind the absolute idealist maintains, ''It is God that worketh in you." The relation which the finite individual sustains to the Absolute is therefore seen to be one of great interest and import- ance for the deeper issues of our subject. B Difficulties of the Teleological Conception of Mind. The Mind as Relative. I. The finite individual and the Absolute. Royce's definition of the individual. The self defined in terms of meaning and purpose of the Absolute. How the element of uniqueness is concerved. The Absolute as a self, all inclusive. In crticism, the element of uniqueness not sufficiently safeguarded by Royce; the truth that "in God we live and move and have our being" does not necessarily involve identity of thought and will; this full identity en- dangers ethical distinctions that are fundamental; Royce's failure to pro- vide an adequate ground in the individual for the will and purpose whose uniqueness is essential to his theory; the individual an existent, greater than his thoughts and purposes or the sum of them, related to the absolute by inclusion not identity; man's will therefore free even to oppose the Eternal, however ineffectually. So also Ormond. II. The apparent instability of the organic unity of mind. Questions raised by facts of multiple personality or dissociation; study of these com- paratively recent, hence conclusions for the most part tentative; lines of dissociation mainly follow tastes and moods; dissociated states capable of being resolved back into primary states; possible extent of dissociation; the range of the subconscious life far greater than usually supposed; the de- velopment of secondary selves tends to confirm the idealistic definition of the individual; the personal "I" an index of personality, voicing the pre- dominant state; causes of dissociation and its general effects. May it be that, with removal of physical organism, these and all other suppressed pur- poses will come to normal expression? III. The finite individual and the physical universe. Discussed in the next chapter, the Human Mind and The Natural Order. That the effort to conceive of mind as a unity of purposes more or less fully expressed, and yet as genuinely one, is not free from certain difficulties, is apparent (1) from the relation 28 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY of the human mind to the Absolute, (2) from a consideration of. the nature of the mind itself, and (3) from the relation of the human individual to the physical universe. I. The finite individual and the Absolute. Royce's defini- tion of the individual. 1. From the metaphysical side, then, can the individual person, as that term is commonly used, be said in any proper sense to to have an existence of his own? Is the human mind purely relative in all its thoughts and emotions, nothing more nor less than the momentary expression of the one great All? This question Prof. Royce seems to answer in the affirmative. After discussing at some length the empirical self and the self of realism and rejecting both as unsatisfactory statements of the true meaning of individuality he thus defines the impU cations of individuaUty:^ "Primarily, then, the con- trast of Self and not-Self comes to us as the contrast between the Internal and External meaning of this present moment's purpose. In the narrowest sense the Self is just your own present imperfectly expressed pulsation of meaning and purpose, — this striving, this love, this hate, this hope, this fear, this inquiry, this inner speech of the instant's will, this thought, this deed, this desire, — in brief this idea taken as an Internal meaning. In the widest sense, the not-Self is all the rest of the divine whole of conscious life, — the Other, the outer World of expressed meaning taken as in contrast with what, just at this instant of our human form of conscious- ness, is observed, and relatively speaking, possessed." The mental states and attitudes, capable of a certain amount of self- hood have, or ought to have, some one principle whereby they would possess a united and permanent meaning. This uniting purpose or principle would identify "the part of the world's life which is to be in the larger sense one's own." This feeling that one ought to be able to select from the universe a certain portion of purposeful life as that of his true individual self, such that he would contrast with this whole of his individual life, all other individual selves and the Absolute, reveals the self as an ethical category. One's whole meaning is and will remain one with the whole life of God. At the same time this whole mean- iRoyce, The World and the Individual, vol. II, p. 272. IDEALISTIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY 29 ing is conceived by Royce as finding expression in the form of contrasting and cooperating lives, of which the one, for example, which is mine is "linked more closely in purpose, task and mean- ing with the life of this instant than is the life of any other indi- vidual. * * * * By this meaning of my life-plan, by this posses- sion of an ideal, by this intent always to remain another than my fellows despite my divinely planned union with them, — by this and not by the possession of any soul-substance I am defined and created a self."* 2. The self then has no absolutely independent being. But in distinction from Kant's definition of self as merely a valid law Royce defines it as a life. Its individuality is gained through its relation to God. Yet in Him it nevertheless dwells as an individual. It is an unique expression of the divine purpose. At the same time it is to be insisted upon that in the present form of human consciousness, the true Self of any individual man is an ideal rather than a datum. All individual lives, plans and experiences find their unity in God. They do so, however, in such a manner that there is but one ultimate and integrated Self, that of the Absolute. Our individuality as distinct from other individualities is retained merely in so far as our life-plans are mutually contrasting life-plans, each one reaching its com- pletion only as it recognizes its own difference from other life- plans. The self, then, is never found as a completely realized fact. It is an ideal, having its true place in the eternal world where all plans have their fulfillment. The degree of uniqueness attaching to each individual life is further emphasized by Royce in maintaining that the depend- ence of the self means simply that it derives from the other lives everything it possesses except its uniqueness, — ''every- thing except its individual fashion of acknowledging and taking interest in its very dependence, and of responding thereto by its deeds. In taking your place among men you must derive all of your life from elsewhere except in so far as your life becomes for you your own way of viewing your relation to the whole, and of actively expressing your own ideal regarding this relation. This your own way of expressing God's will is not derived. It is yourself. And it is yours because God worketh in you.''^ iRoyce, The World and the Individual, vol. II, p. 226. »Ibid, vol. II, p. 293. dU ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY This purpose of yours is entirely your own, therefore, and can be shared by no other. It is underived, because directh'^ pro- duced in you by the God whose will you thus uniquely express in the totality of your life-plan. 3. Royce conceives of the Absolute as a Self, in its form *'in- clusive of an infinity of various, but interwoven, and so of inter- communicating selves, each one of which represents the totality of the Absolute in its own way and with its own unity, so that the simplest conceivable structure of the Absolute Life would be statable only in terms of an infinitely great variety of types of purpose and of fulfillment, intertwined in the most complex fashion."* Accordingly he holds that all ignorance, striving, defeat, error, narrowness, and so on, that are seen in us are present from the Absolute point of view, and seen in unity with the overcoming of all defeats, ignorance, error, narrowness and the like. If it be asked, then, how we have become sundered from the Absolute and our consciousness narrowed, it is replied, that "such narrowness must find its place within the Absolute life in order that the Absolute should be complete. From the point of view of the Absolute, the finite beings never fall away,"* The inseparable aspect of a man's nature, incapable of causal explanation, is that which finds expression in his resolve to be, in God's world, himself and no one else. But in this will to be a unique individual, God also wills and His will or act, whereby your individuality becomes what it is in purpose and meaning, is identical with your own individual will. Except as thus identical it does not exist. ^ Royce therefore concludes his discussion of the Place of the Self in Being by laying down what he takes to be the deepest truth that religion has been seeking to teach humanity, namely that ''God can not be One except by being many, nor can the various selves be many without being one in Him."* 4a, In criticism of Royce's discussion of the finite individual the Absolute it is to be urged that the individual is so completely relative to the Absolute and is so dominated by the Absolute that the element of uniqueness is largely lost to view and the individual, in comparison, is nothing but a phase, an aspect of iRoyce, The World and the Individual, vol. II, p. 298. 2Ibid, vol. II, p. 302. 'Ibid, vol. II, p. 327. Compare Ostwald's Ingersoll Lecture, Individuality and Immortality. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, Mass. 40, ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY sweet feeling of being united with the nature about me, which is completely characterized by complete forgetfulness of my poor self. We may conclude from this that individuality means limitations and unhappiness, or is at least closely connected with them!"* 3. If this statement from Ostwald appears to go beyond the realm of the physical into the metaphysical, we may turn to the physiologist or to the psychologist who maintains that what we call mind is simply a system of nerve reactions, devel- oped among the ancestors of man during the long ages of the past and so deeply imbedded in the nervous organization that they now occur in this particular manner and in no other. Thought, being functioned by the brain, it follows that what we commonly call mind is merely a series of bodily phenomena and has no separate existence. When the brain has ceased to act, thought for that individual, is forever at an end. There is no permanent self-identity, but man surrenders up ''his in- dividual being, To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain Turns with his share and treads upon." II. The apparent dependence of the mind on the body. 1, The problem here presented grows cut of the intimate rela- tion between body and mind. At no period of life does the mind appear wholly free from the states of the body. In infancy the mental powers are as rudimentary as the physical. They ex- pand as the body develops. Important physical changes at the critical periods of life are accompanied by corresponding mental changes. Certain mental activities have their seat in corre- sponding fixed areas of the brain. An undeveloped brain goes with imbecility. Old age is accompanied not only with physical debility but also with loss of mental vigor. Memory fails and the reasoning powers become enfeebled. Bryant is said to have ceased to write poetry after the age of fifty and to have begun the translation of Homer because, in his opinion, old age is not conducive to creative activity. 2. The question very naturally arises, therefore, as to how ^Oatwald, Individuality and Immortality pp. 44-46. THE HUMAN MIND AND THE NATURAL ORDER 41 these two series of facts are related to each other. Are the bodily conditions the ultimate cause of the co.-responding mental phenomena that attend them? If so then what we term mind appears to have a purely ephemeral existence. When age and decay shall have done their work upon the physical frame and the body shall be dissolved into the elements of which it is com- posed, the mind likewise, as the effect of its activities, will have perished. Having had no prior existence and no independent being it can have none now. It is in daily peril also, equally with the body, from every chance accident arising from the hostile working of the same nature that built up the body, work- ing now through storm, now through excessive heat or cold, now through the ravages of disease. 3. It is frequently pointed out that to establish a causal relation of this character is beyond the power of the sciences of nature, that, in the field of mental phenomena, or in the borderland between the mental and the physical, natural science can do no more legitimately than to recognize that the two series of phenom- ena are concomitant, that when an event belonging to one series occurs, a corresponding event belonging to the other occurs with it. And even this is methodological, rather than ontological. To go l^eyond this is to enter the province of metaphysical speculation. Of course it is not expected that the inquiring mind will pause in its search for ultimate truth at this stage. It will seek something further whether that some- thing be labeled scientific or metaphysical. We are here simply recognizing the limitations of scientific method. If these changes be concomitant two explanations of them seem possible. They may both be produced from one cause lying further back, which reveals itself on the one hand as physi- cal, on the other as mental, — the doctrine of parallelism. Or they may be regarded as so disparate in their nature as to be measurably independent each of the other, in the sense of not being involved in the other's fate, while each is intimately bound up with the other, acts upon the other, and in turn is acted upon in a vast variety of ways. This doctrine of interactionism has been held in several forms. It is frequently held in a dualistic form as just outlined. It is held also in an idealistic form in that the body is regarded as an objective expression of mind for the purposes of its perceptive life, and that, as such, it exists for 42 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY and is maintained by the mind as Absolute. It is in this form that the interactionist theory of the relation of the body to the mind possesses chief interest for us. However, it has doubtless become evident that, before any satisfactory headway can be made in setting forth the mutual relations of mind and body, or the place of the human mind in the order of nature, a closer definition of both mind and body is needed. III. The body. 1, The popular view of the body makes of it an object sepa- rate from the mind. It is the instrument of the latter, not in the sense that the mind is essentially in need of such a means of expressing its activity, but more in the sense that for purposes of the present life amid physical surroundings it is the medium of the mind's self-expression. The body, therefore, is in no proper sense to be identified with the mind. It occupies space, requires a certain amount of food to keep it in health, and a certain amount of activity in order to maintain its vitality in normal condition. The human body is material in its structure, and is subject to the laws which control matter in all its forms. It is in no sense the true person, but is often regarded as some- thing of an encumbrance, so that, when at last death intervenes, the true self is set free. As little need be said in exposition of the popular view of the body so also the criticism of it may be brief. Its dualism is so transparent as to give it no place in serious philosophical or scientific thought. It recognizes body and mind as separate modes of being and in this respect approaches somewhat the position of the idealist. But while it recognizes a certain mutual relation and interaction between mind and body it gives no adequate explanation whatever of that relation. 2. The naturalistic view of the body has been partly outlined above. It takes fuller notice of the various activities of the body and of the relations which these sustain to what we have commonly regarded as the mind. But the term mind is one with which the naturalistic writer seeks to dispense as of com- paratively little service. Or he redefines it in terms of neural adjustments. The body, under this view, is the product of evolution through long ages and a variety of forms of organic THE HUMAN MIND AND THE NATURAL ORDER 43 life. In the long process its modes of activity have become clearly defined. A nervous system has been built up, which controls the varied movements of the body by means of a system of reactions the most complex. Governing and direct- ing all as a sort of clearing house for the redirection of motions, the brain rules. It is the central organ which regulates our activities. The type of body thus developed through the ages shows traces of redundant organs. But while it is still capable of a certain degree of further perfection it is securely established in the order of nature. The naturalistic view marks an advance over the popular view of the body. It recognizes that no dualistic view can be permanently satisfactory. It has a keen appreciation also of the intimate connection between the body and what is commonly termed mind. The difficulty arises when the naturalistic scientist sets out to treat the mind in terms of physical matter alone, to interpret it as an adjective of the body. Naturalism stands for the doctrine that the phase of the world presented at the level- of the physical is a final reading of nature. It fails to find any deeper reality and provides no place for a recogni- tion of ideal factors guiding the development of the physical. It is curious and interesting to observe, therefore, how the ideal avenges itself of this neglect particularly in the fuller exposition of the subject now before us, involved in the naturalistic theories of transmission through heredity. Spencer accounted for the facts of heredity, as well as for the restoration of lost parts of certain animals, by assuming the existence of physiological units in each of which there is an intrinsic aptitude to develop the particular forms of the given species, just as the atoms of a salt crystallize in a particular way. These units, far more complex than molecules permeate the organism. Reproduction is rendered possible through the physiological units contained in the germ. In different species the units are of different kinds. In one body they are'of the same kind but differently arranged for producing the various parts under the guiding influence of the whole. It is objected to this explanation of heredity that, while it keeps in view the end to be attained, it fails to point out the means sufficiently and their organic connection with the goal of the process. 44 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY Spencer's error was an excess of the idealistic element in an abstract form. Darwin's theory of pangenesis was free from the strongest objections to Spencer's view of heredity. It teaches that all the cells of the organism throw off minute gemmules which, through mutual affinity, cluster together and under proper conditions reproduce the tissues and organs from which each individual gemmule was originally derived. In criticism of Darwin it is urged that he pointed out the means for the develop- ment of the new individual, but the theory of pangenesis does not point out sufficiently the organic relation to the plan of the whole to be carried out through them. The theory furnishes a mechanical basis for accounting for the facts, but the ideal- istic element is clearly and necessarily presupposed. Weismann's theory, which is more widely current than either of the foregoing, assumes the existence of a germ plasm which is continuous from parent to offspring and remains un- changed in the latter. This germ plasm is naturally immortal, dying only by accident, whereas the cells forming the body die of their own nature. In Weismann's theory there is a synthesis of the directing totality with the mechanical means organic to that totality. We find at once an idealistic and a mechanical element in synthesis. Whether this synthesis is complete or not the students of the logic of biology must determine. In all these explanations, attempting as they do to account, upon a mechanical basis, for the development of life, the ideal persistently obtrudes. It is the continuance of the general type that is to be explained. How is it that the creature newly brought into being conforms to the type of the parents, and is not made up of parts confusedly related to each other? It is not, indeed, the old conception of purpose, taught by Paley and his successors, of an external purpose realized by direct creation. It is that of immanent design through mediate creation or develop- ment. Nature can not otherwise be understood than through this conception of immanent purpose. Even the inorganic world reveals plan in its arrangement and in the adjustment of part to whole. Without the aid of this conception of purpose the organic world would be even more difficult of explanation than the inorganic. The organism is a unit whose every part sub- serves the plan of the whole. In the idea of a formative hered- THE HUMAN MIND AND THE NATURAL ORDER 45 itary substance mechanism is combined with teleology and finds its significance in it. These units have their ''tendency" to form organisms. But '^tendency" and ''influence," though inhering in the material unit or germ, are not themselves material. In the final analysis they exhibit the thought and will of the Absolute. The laws which they follow in their working are the manifestations of the Divine Mind. 3. Some further definition of the body, is, therefore, needed than that offered by naturalism, one which will give fitting and full expression to the idealistic elements within the naturalistic conception itself. This need the idealist endeavors to supply. To the absolute idealist the human body, like the entire order of nature, is an outward expression of mind. It has come to its present form through an evolution extending through many ages. But at no stage could it be considered in any sense self-subsistent. It expresses the purposes of mind. The human body is the instrument through which the mind as finite attains outward expression. As all lower forms of organic and inorganic existence have their meaning in the life of the Absolute so also does the body of man. It is the medium through which arise the sense-perceptions in which the human mind discovers order and significance, and which it employs for its various purposes. Its preservation is due to the activity of the Absolute. It is through the Universal Mind and by it that these bodies are successively developed and, when they have served their pur- pose, are in turn laid aside. The body, therefore, is the medium for the activity of the Absolute at the same time that it serves the finite mind; for it is by means of the human individual, therefore also of the human body, that the Absolute becomes expressed within human rela- tions in the time-space world. The degree of reality which belongs to the body is, in consequence, of a relatively low order. It is in no sense a final form of being. Since it exists simply to serve certain ends, these ends once fulfilled the reasons for its existence are satis- fied and its individuality is surrendered. In the end, therefore, according to the absolute idealist, the body has no abiding reality. 46 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY IV. The mind, 1. The view of the mind commonly held regards it as the seat of true personality. It is an entity separate from the body and measurably independent of it. It is the seat of the emotional life, of thought and of will. It is preeminently the person. It is the soul, the immaterial part of man which survives the body at death. Intimately joined to the body it is powerfully influ- enced by the states of the latter, but it is not wholly subject to these. It possesses within itself the power to defy the physical state when interest impels it to do so, and, upon the destruction of the body, is set free to follow its own characteristic life. 2. The view of the mind taken by the biologist and the physiological psychologist, as already remarked, starts from the physical states of the body as forming the basis of what we call mind. They have noted the relation of imbecility to defective brain development, and the effect upon memory or consciousness occasioned by blows on the head. They have investigated the influence of ether, mescal and other stimulants and drugs upon the quality of one's ideas. Starting from these admitted facts they have concluded that thought is simply the product of brain function. These thoughts, to be sure, are related to each other, but they are so related because of their relation to the physical organism. The special forms of our thinking are traceable to special sections of the brain. When we think of things we have seen, one part of the brain is active, when of things we have heard, another portion of the brain is at work. The emotional life is occasioned by still other parts of the brain. The success that has thus far attended the investigations along these lines, has inspired the belief that ultimately all the activities of the mind will be ex- plained in terms of brain function and nerve reaction. Mind will then have become a negligible term. If still retained in scientific discussion it will be retained much as we continue to speak of the rising and setting of the sun notwithstanding that astronomy has shown this form of speech to be founded upon an illusion. The naturalistic view of mind rests upon the assumption that the term function as applied to the mind always means productive function. Consequently it overlooks or ignores the THE HUMAN MIND AND THE NATURAL ORDER 47 fact that the word function is ambiguous. It may mean per- missive or transmissive function, as James has pointed out in his Ingersoll lecture on Human Immortality. Strictly speaking, as elsewhere indicated, naturalistic science can properly do no more than draw our attention to the fact that brain states are attended by certain mental activities and vice versa, the general fact that thinking is attended by the functioning of the brain. To go beyond into either interpretation of the further significance of the functioning process, as to whether it is productive or merely permissive of thought, is to make an incursion into the field of metaphysics. By himself adopting the transmission theory of brain function^ James in his Ingersoll lecture allied his psychological views with those of the idealistic philosophy. 3. From the standpoint of absolute idealism the human mind is a manifestation of the Absolute Mind. It exists for the Abso- lute and in the Absolute. It is the Absolute Mind as finite and imperfect, the Absolute in negative relation to itself, to make use of a strictly Hegelian expression. The Universal Mind, rising above the threshold of human consciousness thus appears at the level of reality which is found in human life. Other idealists, such, for example, as Ormond, regard the human mind as an existent instituted by the Absolute, having a capac- ity for thought and will of its own and not so completely identi- fied with the Universal Mind as the foregoing statement would seem to imply. In either case the human mind is the imperfect expression of those ideals and capacities which in the mind of the Absolute are perfect and complete. We have already discussed somewhat fully the individual human mind as an expression of purpose. It is necessary here merely to call attention to a few leading features of that dis- cussion. How the purposes and capacities characteristic of an individual become organized in the life of the child we have no means of knowing. It is evident, however, that not all these purposes within the compass of a mind come to development within the period of a lifetime. The degree of individuality is determined by that the choice of which is most complete and most constantly and persistently pursued, or, if more than one purpose be expressed, by the degree to which each is developed. From the human side, individuality, to the extent in which it is individual, is determined by this purpose to win a unique 48 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY place by maturing as fully as possible the chosen end and aim. From the standpoint of the Absolute, as already remarked, the Ultimately Real is thus manifested in the time-space world, and in the relations of human society through the finite mind. The human mind finds its development not apart from but within relations to physical objects. Its special life and activity are manifested in and through the human body, by means of which it is connected with the physical order. It is in fact through the opposition of the physical world that it becomes aroused to full self-consciousness. By the physical world it is stirred into activity; for when not invited into new lines of endeavor it is goaded into the exercise of its powers in sheer self-defense in order to preserve life and all that it holds dearest, or to promote the welfare of these. The very furnishings of the mind are derived from physical existents. Its imagery is drawn from sense objects. The language which it speaks and by means of which it thinks clearly is permeated with the traces of physical and material things. But these material objects no less than the human mind are maintained by the Absolute Mind. Both are held in their mutual relations by the Over- Soul. V. Mutual relations of mind and body. 1. We have endeavored to reach definitions of body and soul from the idealist's point of view, to consider what each is in itself and in its relations. Their mutual relations have in part been involved in the preceding discussion. Nevertheless it remains to inquire further how they are related to each other. It will readily be admitted that they are causally connected, but how this causal connection exists and acts it is difficult to determine. The view that the soul is, to use Bradley's ex- pression, "a mere adjective depending on the body," a mere effect, we have already found to be unsatisfactory and have in consequence sought for a more adequate definition of mind. On the other hand a complete view of the situation must recog- nize that the body holds a more vital and organic connection with the mind than is implied by the popular view in regarding it as an attendant of the mind. Nor can the body be considered as a creation of the soul, for physical changes, it would then appear, come from the soul, and as effects of the soul, could not THE HUMAN MIND AND THE NATURAL ORDER 49 react upon it. Yet this interaction is one of the facts in the problem to be explained. 2. In seeking to understand the mutual relations existing between mind and body we shall be aided by keeping clearly in view the conclusions already attained. Both mind and body are manifestations of the Absolute at different degrees of reality. Both are maintained by the Absolute in fulfillment of their several functions. They are intimately and most vitally con- nected with each other. There are indications, also, that their relations are not paral- lel. Under certain circumstances the teleological functioning of conation is first in order of time and importance. The will then prevails and draws the body into its service along the line of its endeavor. There are other circumstances in which the habitual reactions of the bodily organization are primary, when the mind is scarcely conscious of what is taking place. 3. The true relation between the body and the mind, it now appears, must be sought in some form of interactionism, not in regarding either as fundamentally the cause of the other. Since neither mind nor body is self-subsistent and independent but both exist for and in the Absolute it will be recognized that this interaction has its ultimate basis within the Absolute Mind. But the full extent of that close interrelation it is not possible to trace in detail. To this conclusion Bradley's discussion in his chapter on Body and Soul also leads. He regards both soul and body as series of phenomena. "Each, to speak in general, is implicated in the changes of the other. Their supposed inde- pendence is, therefore, imaginary, and to overcome it by invok- ing a faculty such as will is the effort to heal a delusion by means of a fiction. A psychical state, once conjoined with a physical may normally restore it; and hence this psychical may be treated as the cause. It is not properly the cause since it is not the whole cause; but it is most certainly an effective and differential condition. The physical event is not the result of a mere physi- cal state. And if the idea or feeling had been absent, or if again it had not acted, this physical event would not have happened.''* Bradley concludes that in the end no complete explanation of how mind and body act upon each other is possible. "The connection between body and soul is in the end inexplicable, 'Appearance and Reality, p. 335. 50 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY and the further inquiry as to the 'how' is irrational and hope- less."* Soul and body he regards as equally unreal in the sense that each is a fragment artificially abstracted from the whole. It is impossible in the end to understand how either comes to exist. 4, It seems fair to conclude, however, that, inasmuch as the Absolute is Mind, the human mind is far more closely related to the Absolute than the body. It is a fuller expression of Reality than any purely physical mani- festation cariL be. It is therefore more fundamental. Aristotle defined the soul as ''the first entelechy of an organized body possessing life potentially." To conceive of it in this way is to attribute to it a degree of reality such as would render it capable of surviving the fate of the body. To the same conclusion we are led by best idealistic thought of the present. The human mind, then, has a definite and characteristic place within the natural order. By virtue of its existence in the body it is incorporated in the order of nature. It may be re- garded as nature's finest development, its most perfect fruitage. But if within the natural order it is not wholly within it. It rises above nature. Its fullest life is to be found in the spiritual realm. Its abiding home is with God and in Him. ^Appearance and Reality, p. 336. ETERNAL LIFE AND THE FLOW OF TIME 51 CHAPTER III. The Life Eternal and the Flow of Time. I. Early anticipations of the modern conception of eternal life. The ideas of worth and permanence seeking harmonious expression. Immortality among the Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, in the Persian hymns and prayer, and in the Hebrew psalms. II. The Christian conception. Nature of eternal life. Implications. Man's capacity to receive the divine gift. Over-individual aspects of human life. III. Eternal life defined with over-emphasis upon value. Spinoza's doctrine of immortality. The conception of Miinsterberg: human life beyond time, which like science is a creation of mind; the real personality found in will-attitudes; mind as expression of value is uncaused; relation to the Absolute. Criticism of Mtinsterberg: obscurity of his doctrine; individuality dissipated in the Absolute; over-emphasis upon value. IV. Temporal aspect of eternal life. Need of clearer definition. Un- reality of time as presented by Taylor. Reality of time, the view of naive realism and pragmatism. Mediating position of Watson. Time a "sublated form of being within a perfected experience." The eternal expresses itself in the temporal, otherwise an abstraction. The eternal life the fulfillment of the present. I. Early conceptions of eternal life. 1. Human life, under any proper conception is something more than bare existence. Merely to exist is not to live. Accord- ingly the conception of life after death has its deepest motive, not in the desire for continuance growing out of the dread of annihilation, but in the sense of worth, and the attendant feel- ing that what has the truest value should and does also pos- sess permanence. These two elements have ever contended for united and har- monious expression. In the best thought of antiquity the worth of life is the theme of the deepest meditations of the noblest minds. The union of the idea of worth with that of duration into the conception of an eternal life, in which the best of the present finds its completest expression, was indeed antic- ipated in the ancient world but not grasped with full assur- ance before the Christian Era. 2. Greek philosophy at its best approaches our modern con- ception of eternal life in an interesting degree. Plato endeavored to understand the world according to a pattern laid up in heaven. His dream of the ideal society was prompted by the desire that righteousness prevail in the social order and in the government of the state. There can be little doubt that in presenting the 52 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY proper course for the lover of wisdom, he reflects his own mature thought when he says: "Now he who has become a member of this little band (of true lovers of wisdom) and has tasted how sweet and blessed his treasure is, and has watched the madness of the many, with the full assurance that there is scarcely a person who takes a single judicious step in public life, and that there is no ally with whom he may safely march to the succor of the just * * * * — having, I say, weighed all this, such a man keeps quiet and confines himself to his ov;n concerns, like a man who, in a storm of dust and spray driven by the wind, takes shelter behind a wall; and when from his retreat he sees the infection of lawlessness spreading over the rest of mankind, he is well content if he can in any way live his life here un- tainted in his own person by unrighteousness and unholy deeds, and when the time for his release arrives takes his de- parture with noble hope and with a serene mind."^ The future life as conceived by Aristotle is a life of growth, of development, of insight into what in the earthly life was mys- terious yet attractive to the inquiring mind ever eager to understand and to know fully the meaning and relations of things. The ardent desjre of the Apostle Paul to know fully even as he was fully known was no less that of Aristotle, whose mind, the highest expression of the scientific impulse of his time, jK)Ssessed little of the mystic and poetic soul, but in its passion for knowledge, sought to include all things. Aristotle's ode to the intellectual life is most significant in that, from the side of pure and consistent thought he has attained to exalted conclusions in regard to God and man's relation to Him, yet has not come to a well-defined conception of an eternal life in conscious fellow- ship with Him. In the metaphysics he writes: ''In this way, however, is the Deity disposed as to existence, and the prin- ciple of life is, at any rate, inherent in the Deity; for the energy or active exercise of mind constitutes life, and God — as above delineated — constitutes this energy; and essential energy be- longs to God as his best and everlasting life. Now our state- ment is this, — that the Deity is a living being that is everlast- ing and most excellent in nature ; so that with the Deity life and duration are uninterrupted and eternal: for this constitutes the very essence of God."^ JThe Republic. 496 C. ^Metaphysics Bk. XI, Ch. VII, 6 p. 332 M'Mahon tr. ETERNAL LIFE AND THE FLOW OF TIME 53 3. Persian thought, at its best, discloses a similar identi- fication of the truest life of man with the knowledge of God. In many of the prayers of the Zend-Avesta we may trace a surprisingly clear conception of human fellowship in the life and eternity of God, as for example in the following: "And do Thou, Lord, the Great Creator! come to me with Thy Good Mind; and do Thou, who bestowest gifts through Thy Righteousness, bestow alike long-lasting life on us. And that this life may be spent aright, do Thou, by means of Thy lofty words, bestow the needed powerful, spiritual help upon Zara- thustra and upon us, whereby we may overcome the torments of the tormentor * * * *. "That best of gifts, therefore, do I beseech of Thee, Thou best of beings, Ahura! who art one in will with Thy Divine Righteousness within us, likewise the best of spirits, desiring it as I now do for the heroic man Frashaastra and for me upon whom also may'st Thou bestow it not for time alone but for all the ages of Thy Good Mind, that reign of Thy Benevolence which shall be to us as Heaven."* 4, How suggestive these sentiments are of many similar thoughts expressed in the Psalms of the Hebrews, from which we select the following: "Thou wilt show me the path of life; In Thy presence is fulness of joy, At Thy right hand there are pleasures f ore ver more. "^ "As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, in thy likeness."* "Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."* JSacred Books of the East, Ed. F. Max Muller, vol. XXXI. The Zend Aveeta, Part III, L. H. Mills, pp. 21-22. «p8alm 16:11. •Paalm 17:15. ♦Psalm 73:26. 54 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY 11. The Christian conception of eternal life. 1. The conception of eternal life finds its most satisfactory expression in the Christian view of man's nature and destiny. In this immortality is everywhere assumed. Life and immor- tality are brought to light by Christ. And by as much as the fully developed mental and spiritual life surpasses mere phj^sical existence, so the life eternal surpasses the best that is attainable under the conditions of our phenomenal existence in time. Yet the eternal is not unrelated to the present life. It is not a boon received at death or after death. It is on the contrary a present possession. He that believes in Christ, who is in life-fellowship with him,* has eternal life now, so that in the Christian concep- tion time and eternity are not true antitheses, but the latter includes the former. Eternal life is God's gift to men, an endow- ment not earned but bestowed out of His free and abundant favor. It is conferred through the agency of the Holy Spirit who brings conviction of sin, inspires the loathing for sin and awakens new desires in the individual. He presents to the soul the perfect life of Christ and gives aid to pattern after that great ^example. Eternal life for man, then, means that the divine life dwells in him. It is the union and communion of the human with the divine. It means the subordination of the baser ele- ments and the progressive attainment of our noblest ideals and purposes. That life is not interrupted by death, for death, to the believer, means simply ''to depart and be with Christ which is far better"^ than the earthly existence. The goal of the eter- nal life is full likeness to Christ in nature and character. It is that of perfect, unbroken fellowship with Him. The complete conception of the life eternal is thus seen to be something far richer and fuller than that merely of an im- mortality of the soul. To its proper conception the immortality of the soul holds much the same relation as the skeleton to the normal, healthy body. It means the survival of death but more. It is the incapability of death. Death has no dominion over it. Immortality is a negative term. The conception of eternal life gives to it positive and concrete meaning, since the latter is a life enriched by the divine life in ever increasing full- ness. How that life in eternity shall ultimately be manifested, Jfit. John 5:24. 2St. Paul, Philippians, 1:23. ETERNAL LIFE AND THE FLOW OF TIME 55 ill what kind of world-surroundings, and through what modes of expression we need not consider here, further than to remark that the conception of life eternal contemplates an environment in harmony with the best aspirations of the soul, through means capable of adequately and perfectly manifesting its full activity. 2. This conception of eternal life implies certain capacities in the individual which render him capable of receiving the offered divine gift. It involves possibilities which may be developed almost without limit. The general temperament is unchanged by the divine gift, but, under the power and influence of the divine, continues essentially that which it was formerly. The same adaptations continue, lifted, indeed, to a higher plane and put to a nobler use than would otherwise be the case. But there is no approximation to a dead level of life, either by a levelling down of the natural endowments of the more gifted, or through a levelling up of the less highly endowed. The natural adaptations of men are simply exercised and developed- In fact, instead of leading to a dead uniformity among men,, capacities which would tend to remain latent; perhaps become ultimately lost, are called into healthy exercise. This concep- tion of the life eternal therefore, recognizes that the inherent capacities of men are such as fit them for divine fellowship when they shall have become sufficiently unfolded. That fellowship exists, in truth, even in the temporal life. It restores the divine image in man. It gives promise of even more than the tradi- tional first estate of man; for "In Him the sons of Adam boast More blessings than their father lost." Thus it appears that the idealistic doctrine of human individu- ality as an organized system of specialized functions and capac- ities interprets with a considerable degree of accuracy the implications of the Christian conception of immortality. 3. In this conception also the over-individual aspect of human life in regard to moral and spiritual character is even further brought to our notice. The power of God lays hold of some- thing in man not altogether foreign to Himself, although, it is true. Christian teaching has sometimes been so formulated as seemingly to maintain that the human soul is dead toward His influence till made alive by the Almighty power. However, by S6 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY this represention is meant a certain powerlessness of the human will rather than an absence of all knowledge of God and assent to the binding character of His will as duty. But when the eternal life has entered through the agency of the Holy Spirit it is to find there as a starting point an elemental moral and spiritual light. *'We also are His offspring," declared St. Paul to the the Athenian philosophers upon the Areopagus, quoting approv- ingly the Greek poet, Aratus. And St. John, frequently as- sumed to have had the deepest insight into the meaning and teachings of Jesus, presents him as the Eternal Word or Reason through whom all things were made, in whom was life. "And the life was the light of men. * * * There was the true light, even that which lighteth every man, coming into the world. "^ Other passages of similar import might be cited, but these are sufficient to reveal the underlying kinship of the life of man with that of the Eternal. It is a quality of human nature that under the developing influence of the Spirit of God is capable of the highest expression, when all opposition of an estranged will shall have been removed, and the hindering conditions of life in the phenomenal world shall have disappeared. Then our ideals shall find fitting expression, our suppressed purposes will attain proper development, and life be full and complete in God. What that full expression will be we can but faintly realize. ' III. Eternal life defined with excessive emphasis upon value. The general Christian conception assumes that the eternal life is the full expression of what is implied in the temporal, under the moulding and guiding influence of the Divine Spirit. It combines the two elements of worth and duration which the ancient philosophers and seers had held in uncertain and im- perfect unity. It remains to notice another conception of im- mortality which so overemphasizes the value of human life as in effect to underestimate it, paradoxical as that may seem. This conception may be seen in Spinoza and in the thought of Fichte as expressed by Hugo Miinsterberg in his monograph on The Eternal Life. 1. Spinoza teaches that in the highest stage of intellectual development man refers all things to the idea of God. Mens efficere potest, ut omnes corporis affectiones, seu rerum imagines »Go8peI of St. John. 1: 4, 9 R. V. ETEBNAL LIFE AND THE FLOW OF TIME 57 ad Dei ideam referantur.^ In this state all passion having ceased, feeling and will have become absorbed in the knowledge and love of God. This, the highest kind of virtue, both frees man and confers upon him immortality. This intellectual love of God is independent of bodily states. Consequently the de- struction of the body can not affect it. Spinoza speaks rather of eternity, however, than of immortality. By this he means that a thing forms an essential part of the universe, and there- fore can not cease to exist. It is a condition into which the soul enters, in which it is above time relations. He apparently does not conceive eternal life as belonging by nature to all men, but regards it as something to be acquired by each one, and as being acquired in different degrees. It is generally ques- tioned whether the immortality of which Spinoza speaks is im- mortality at all. Spinoza is, indeed, careful to guard against the doctrine that the individual is absorbed in God. In point- ing out that in the final state in which man attains his highest unity in God, he at the same time attains the highest conscious- ness of self, the conclusion appears to be so framed as to convey the impression that while we retain our individuality we shall have no means of knowing ourselves as the same individuals. 2. For Miinsterberg also *'we are beyond time in the reality of our immediate life."^ Time is an idea created by the mind as the form of its objects. If we choose to regard our personality as in time we do so for certain purposes. Science, equally with time, is the creation of our mind. If the men who hold a scientific view of the world and the men who hold the religious view of the world are found in sharply separated camps we are not to yield too ready an assent to all that science appears to demand. Science is dominated by the category of necessity. However, since it too is the creature of the mind by which to accomplish certain ends, the scientist is greater than his science, and it, therefore, fails likewise to ex- press the reality in which we live. The real personality is beyond these constructions of the mind. Time is here regarded as an order in which the reality of one member excludes the reality of every other. The only time-instant which is real is the present. The past has already become unreal and the »Ethica, V. 14. »The Eternal Life, p. 15. 58 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY future will not become real until the present shall have passed away. In this sense our whole life will have become unreal at death. In life considered as a mere series of phenomena there can of course be no value. The real personality is found in its attitudes and will-acts. It is not to be perceived as a thing. Its true meaning is to be, not a phenomenon, but a will whose acts are valid for ourselves, and from others claim acknowledgment. One will is related to another directly, through mutual in- terest, not as scientifically constructed bodies. This mutual interest forms a direct will-connection. Our thoughts and feelings are ''judgments, attitudes, volitions which bind one another by their meaning, \yithout relation to time or succession." It is in these universals in which mutual interests are expressed that one will meets another. These interests in which are ex- pressed our acts of will are bound together by a unity of purpose. It becomes meaningless, therefore, to inquire what came before and what will come after my personal being. My per- sonality was uncaused. It is independent of birth and death. Biological events have no relation to it. It is not born, it will not die. It is immortal, it is eternal. The will is likened to a circle having neither beginning nor end. ''It is endless, infinite." If the question of the value of such a life be raised, it is answered, "Only that which is an ultimate end for us is really a value." The true, the beautiful, the moral deed, the intellectual achieve- ment, the work of civilization, religious faith, the repose of philosophic conviction are ends in themselves and are respected as final. ^ But this means that they are more than individual, personal experiences. Our own will is satisfied in them, but at the same time we know our will as more than an individual volition. Our will- acts are then to us "expressions of an abso- lute will." They are our will-acts, however, "only in so far as we are absolute subjects, in so far as our consciousness is the over-individual consciousness, the Over-Soul."* The relation sustained by the human will to the absolute will Miinsterberg represents as that of "a personality which has found complete satisfaction of its aims" and therefore, "has no possible further intention." To such an one "it would be iThe Eternal Life, p. 46. «Ibid, 60. ETERNAL LIFE AND THE FLOW OF TIME 59 meaningless to attach externally a supplement of individual ex- istence."^ In carrying out this thought he refers again to his deceased friend and declares, ''you and I do not know a reality of which he is not in eternity a noble part; the passing of time cannot make his personality unreal and nothing would be added to his immortal value if some object like him were to enter the sphere of time again. * * * * If I mourn for our friend I grieve not because his personality has become unreal like an event in time, but because his personality as it belongs eternally to our world aims at a fuller realization of its intention, and at a richer influence on his friends."^ 3. The ancient Hebrews thought of the state of the dead as most shadowy. In Sheol there was no remembrance of God, no thought nor device. From quite another starting point Miinsterberg comes to a similar obscurity as to whether there is any genuine personal identity of the individual who has passed from the time-space world. He appears to imply such a con- tinuance of personality when he speaks of his grief as resulting, not from any "unreality as of an event in time" having befallen his friend, but because his personality "aims at a fuller realiza- tion of its intentions and at a richer influence on his friends." But what is thus implied is destroyed by the force of the earlier statement, "You and I do not know areality of which he is not in eternity a noble part." He is then a part of truth as such, of beauty, of life , of God . It is further destroyed by the earlier sta te- ment, "a personality which has found complete satisfaction of its aims has no possible further intention, and it would be mean- ingless to attach to it externally a supplement of individual exist- ence."^ This certainly implies surrender of individual being, and submergence in the Absolute. But inasmuch as we also who remain in the phenomenal world are not in time but beyond it, immortal and eternal, independent of the biological events of birth and death, it follows of necessity that we too are eternal subjects, having our place in the grand symphony. This being true the distinction of the acts of our individual will from the will-acts of the Over-Soul appears devoid of meaning. In short Miinsterberg's conception of the eternal life is too »The Eternal Life, p. 62. «Ibid, pp. 68.71. •Ibid, p. 62. 60 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY obscure to be of real service. It overemphasizes value and that in such a way that the individuality of man is emptied of true significance. Personality becomes dissipated into the great ideals which have been its inspiration in the earthly state. Nor has he presented an adequate consideration of the time element in the idealism of man. The slurring over of this feature of any conception of eternal life leaves much to be desired in the way of closer analysis of the time process in relation to immortality. IV. The temporal aspect of eternal life. 1. But how are we to conceive of eternal life in relation to the time-process? Spinoza and Munsterberg, as we have seen, have pronounced the time element unreal, a construction of the mind to serve its purposes. Others regard time as the a priori condition of sense-perception. In doing so, however, they have presented no satisfying treatment of the situation involved. There is need of a further effort to bring the conceptions of life in time and of life in eternity into harmony with each other in such a way that the truth of neither shall be neglected or ignored. We shall, perhaps, be better enabled to arrive at a construct- ive result if we glance first at the opposing views as to the nature of the time-process. 2. From the side of absolute idealism the unreality of time finds an able advocate in A. E. Taylor in his chapter on Space and Time.^ Time is here considered as perceptual time, on the one hand, and as conceptual on the other. Perceptual time is limited, but is sensibly continuous. It consists not only of a quantitative element, but has likewise a qualitative character which depends on the relation of the here and now of immediate individual feeling. Conceptual time is constructed out of the data of perception by a process of synthesis, analysis, and abstrac- tion. It is unlimited, is mathematically continuous and is regarded as infinitely divisible. But neither perceptual time nor conceptual time is to be considered real. The former in- volves reference to the here and now of finite experience. The latter contains no principle of internal distinction and is there- fore not individual. To take time as real, Taylor holds, leads to difficulties about qualities and relations and so to the indefi- nite regress. There is no principle of unity. The time order ^Elements of Metaphysics, pp. 241-265. ETERNAL LIFE AND THE FLOW OF TIME 61 is an imperfect phenomenal manifestation of the logical relation between the inner purposive lives of finite individuals. It is an inevitable aspect of finite experience. Within the Absolute, it is held, there may be many time orders with no temporal con- nection. But how time is transcended in the Absolute it is impossible to say. 3. The common sense point of view assumes that time is a real factor in the universe. This position is likewise held by recent pragmatism. It is that put forward by Mr. F. C. S. Schiller in his volume entitled Humanism. He regards time as an experi- ential factor which ultimately rests on the practical necessity of finding formulas for calculating events without waiting to observe their actual happening.^ If the ultimate explanation of the world be in terms of ends, these must be realized in the time-process and by means of it, since these are individual ends. From this standpoint Schiller urges that a proper metaphysic of the time-process will hold the same relation to the phenomena of history and their explanation as a metaphysic of abstract ideas holds to their explanation by universal laws. The diffi- culties of the problem are not to be ignored. Yet when it is assumed that a further development of the human mind may lead to a satisfactory solution, the reality of the time-process in which the development takes place can not be denied, and abstract metaphysic becomes indebted to it for the means to solve its difficulties. It is only in the direction of the abandon- ment of prejudice against the reality of the time-process that Schiller, at least, "can descry a future for hope, a future for philosophy and a philosophy for the future. ''^ 4. Between these two opposing views of the time-process it should be possible to find a middle way that would keep clear of the extreme consequences of each. The time-process is too patent to be regarded as an illusion. On the other hand if it be considered real, it should be clear in what sense it is so con- sidered. In ail able article on the The Absolute and The Time- Process,^ Prof. Watson takes up the position that the Absolute must be manifested in the time-process, unless the time-process be considered an illusion. In the latter event the very possi- bility of knowledge would be destroyed. Ultimately the world iHumanisra, p. 104. 'Humanism, p. 109. •Philosophical Review, vol. IV, 353, 485. 62 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY and the time-process of ^the finite presuppose a single self-deter- mining principle which is manifested in and through this time- process. The supposition that this self-determining principle can be separated from time would lead to the contradiction that a self-complete Absolute can be independent of its manifesta- tions. Watson defines time as ''the universal possibility of events." The only sense in which it can be considered real is as this universal possibility. All reality implies succession. Yet this process of succession can not be treated as substantial. There is no world of events as there is no world without events. 5. It seems fair to conclude, that time not only has a meaning for our minds but that it has a meaning also for the Absolute Mind. We may recognize then that the eternal is in no sense a true antithesis to the temporal, but rather that the former includes the latter in some genuine sense. Had the time-process no meaning for the Absolute it would be difficult if not impossible, so far as we can see, for an orderly cosmos to exist. For if the order of sequence had no significance for the Author of all things man might have appeared in an age of the world utterly unadapted to his normal development, instead of at the culmination of the physical order. Instead of such a coordination of events as occurred, for example, at the appearance of Christianity to intro- duce the new era upon a world ready to receive it, its signifi- cance might have been utterly lost. Instead of geographical discoveries, the revival of learning, the art of printing and the invention of gunpowder occurring at a time when their combined influence served to usher in the modern era, these things would have been distributed so promiscuously that they could not have been the instruments of a mighty progress. But because the time order has a meaning for the Eternal mind, no less than for ours, events are not scattered so promiscuously as to point to no ultimate goal, but, viewed in their larger relations, they are seen as steps in an unfolding progress. Time is ''an aspect of the totalizing meaning which pervades and organizes experi- ence," even if "a relatively subordinate" one.^ The doctrine that regards time as thoroughly subjective and the time-exper- ience as wholly finite has never been consistently or completely IE. L. Hinman, Time as an Absolute Principle of Negativity, University Studies, vol. VI, p. 7. ETERNAL LIFE AND THE FLOW OF TIME 63 carried out. Nor does it appear capable of yielding a concep- tion that is entirely clear. It is most probable that time is a sublated form within a perfected experience. But it is little short of nonsense to attempt to make it appear that time is noth- ing more than a subjective illusion of the finite consciousness. Time belongs to the larger whole and is organic to it. It is a mode of manifestation of the Absolute. Reality, in certain aspects of its meaning, is beyond the flow of time indeed but in certain others it expresses itself within the time-series. It "partakes of time but denies its power." It is impossible to define time aside from the higher meaning of the timeless, and conversely the timeless or eternal can not be defined independ- ently of the time-process. If it is to be more than an abstraction the eternal must express itself in the temporal. 6. Eternity is* involved in man's life. He is formed by the Eternal and for the Eternal. The capacities of his nature speak of fellowship with God. His activities reveal God present within him as the very ground and possibilitiy of all that he does or undertakes, man in God and God in him. Thus does that which is temporal partake of the Eternal and the Eternal ex- presses itself in that which exists in time. These human capac- ities are quickened and developed by divine power, so that the desire and prayer of the ancient Hebrew or Greek or Persian, that the worth of human life be combined with true permanence in the Absolute, has a secure basis of fulfillment. Our life is already in eternity. Time "the destroyer" has no real power over it. Not out of relation, therefore, with our present or our past will our future be. It will present the completion of that which the present holds as by promise. 64 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY CHAPTER IV. The Reality of the Ideal. I. The ideals of science and knowledge. Science presupposes a rational order in the world. It results from processes of idealization. Knowledge in any sense is possible only through the activity of the universal mind withm thought. How scientific knowledge advances. It is primarily a faith. But the degree of verification of that faith shows the scientific ideal to be a true expression of Reality. II. Immortality as an ideal of reason. It likewise rests on faith in the rational order of the world. The reasonableness of this faith. The persistence of the belief, it is practically universal. Its cultural value and mfluence. Influence of this ideal as a social factor in the overthrow of slavery and other forms of servitude; in the creation of asylums for orphans, the aged, blind, insane, and the like; in reformatories, industrial homes and generally in efforts to reform and care for convicted, persons ; in systems of public instruction, in legislation for regulation of industries and in the efforts to establish international peace. Influence of the ideal of immor- tality upon poetry and the fine arts. Presence of this ideal in morals and religious movements for reform. Reality involved in the ideal of immortality as truly as in scientific ideals. The voice of the Most High in favor of the eternity of every human life. I. The ideal element in science and in all knowledge. 1. If we search for the secret of the mighty progress of the present age, we find at bottom the feeling, instinct, or belief that the world is rational and, therefore, interpre table by human reason. The conviction of Kepler that he was thinking God's thoughts after Him well expresses the presuppositions of science universally. For it is because the world displays Mind in every part that the human mind is able to build up its science. Our reason simply interprets for us the Reason displayed in the constitution of things. '*If a man should meet a being whose language, signs for thought, and symbols for the world were wholly different from his own, with absolutely no point of contact between them, he would never be able to arrive at any knowl- edge of that being. Kinship between them existing nowhere, it would be impossible ever to come to a mutual understanding. They would be to one another like the stone faces that stare at each other from the opposite columns of some gate. It would be sphinx looking at sphinx in endless perplexity and everlast- ing silence. In the same way, if the Infinite by which man's life is surrounded were, like this strange being, an absolute and eternal contrast to humanity, knowledge itself would be im- THE REALITY OF THE IDEAL 65 possible. One would be permanently unable to discover any- thing, to find thought in the heavens above, or in the earth be- neath; to understand the figure and motion of the globe, the orbits and orders of the stars; to reach any sort of science upon any subject whatever. ***** Because we do know men and things; because the world lends itself to thought, melts into the the receptivities of sense, runs into the forms of the understanding, rises into a unity that corresponds to the personal unity of the soul; because the world is an intelligible world, we believe that it is alive with mind, that it is an expression of the Infinite Mind, and that in reading its order we are reaching his plan."^ 2, Science is through and through the result of processes of idealization. To the plain man the world divides itself into the material and the immaterial. But so soon as one gets beyond the most elementary facts and begins to inquire more closely how these same things are constituted, thought takes upon it- self a somewhat different form. The matter that seemed so hard and fast, we now learn, is composed of atoms inconceivably minute. Every atom within a given element is like every other atom composing it. But no one ever beheld an atom. The most powerful microscope can not reveal it to our curious gaze. It is in short an ideal creation, a conceptual rather than a purely perceptual existent. Scientists in the last few years have carried out this principle of interpretation of the physical world still farther. The progress of investigation and discovery has tended to show that the atom is not indivisible, as had been supposed, but is in turn made up of electrons. But these, even more if possible than the atom, are metaphysical creations pure and simple. The whole splendid structure of the world which seemed so hard and fast has thus become known to us not directly and as things are in themselves, but indirectly through a process of idealization, the results of which warrant us in concluding that this our knowledge of the elemental forces and materials is, in the main, true. But not only does idealization enter into our knowledge of the most fundamental characteristics of the inorganic world. We endeavored to point out in a preceding chapter that, in the realm of the organic also, the ideal of the completed organism is the guiding, molding factor in the development of its life, and that »G. A. Gordon, Immortality and the New Theodicy, pp. 114-116. 66 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY every attempted explanation of the principle of hereditya ssumes this characteristic in some form or other, whether it be under the conception of ''the plan of the whole" as involved in the life- bearing particles that go to form the new organism, or whether we speak of ''tendency," or "influence" as guiding the process. It is due to the ideal element that no mistakes occur in the form- ing organism such as would result in parts misplaced or dispro- portionately developed. This "plan of the whole", this "tend- ency" or "influence" is as we have seen, in the last analysis, nothing less than the directing activity of the Absolute in whom all ideals exist. They are expressions of the active thought that rules and pervades all things. 3. But these underlying principles of the sciences that propose to interpret the natural world lead to a consideration of ques- tions even more fundamental, connected with the very process of knowledge. How is it that we know things at all? How comes it that we are able to impart and receive knowledge, that a thought may be passed from one mind to another and become intelligible to that other? Is it not due to the same unifying factor that is displayed everywhere in our acquaintance with the world? It is the evidence that within our thinking there is the influence of Another who has so constructed our mental proces- ses and so directs them that thoughts may be transferred from , mind to mind by means of intelUgible speech. To Him it is alone due that progress in knowledge is possible through arguments that, properly stated, are valid and conclusive for all normal minds. 4. We should consider, in this connection, how it is that genuine progress in scientific knowledge comes to be achieved. Science deals with the facts of experience and with the immediate implications of those facts. It seeks by the method of careful verification to arrive at conclusions incontestibly established. Its ideal is the exactness attainable in the mathematical sciences. In consequence of this appeal to experience it is apt to be im- patient with views and conclusions which do not yield to this exact scientific test.^ r" *0n this ground immortality is sometimes denied. The conclusion of Ostwald, for ex- ample, against any true immortality rests upon the premise that we have no experience of immortality. Reduced to syllogistic form, the general argument may be stated thus: Whatever is not involved in our experience is inconceivable; Immortality is not a fact of experience; It is, therefore, inconceivable. Moreover the difficulty of thinking that Creative Power is able to preserve the soul's existence after the brain has ceased its ac- THE REALITY OF THE IDEAL 67 But whatever be the ideal of science, true scientific progress is made very largely by the method of trial and error. Successive hypotheses are formed which purport to explain facts as known. As other facts are brought to light which tend to weaken or destroy the old theory, a modification of the old or an entirely new hypothesis is introduced to meet the requirements. The planet Neptune was discovered because observed irregularities in the orbits of other planets seemed to require an unknown planet as the most reasonable explanation. Its existence was first of ail a surmise, then a well-defined faith, afterward verified. The wonderful discoveries made through the use of the spectro- scope rest upon the belief that the characteristic lines in the spectra are results produced from certain elements known to us to be present in the structure of the earth, but assumed to be present in the sun and stars. In other words the conclusion reached as to the presence of these elements in othier bodies of our solar system and in the stars beyond it is mainly a belief, although to be sure a thoroughly reasonable faith. There is no more brilliant illustration of this truth that science rests upon faith, than in the field of biology. The theory of evolution when brought forward was admittedly in advance of the facts to be explained. Several gaps existed in the argument so far as actual verification from known facts was concerned. And these gaps have not all been filled even now. Yet as a working hypothesis it explained the known facts so well, and filled so admirably the intellectual demand for unity that it has led to a reconstruction not only in biology but in every other science. It has likewise found support in subsequent discoveries to such an extent that, instead of losing ground, it is more generally accepted today than ever before. Yet for all that it has been to a large extent a faith, not a fully demonstrated fact. Through long application to a given subject or field of knowledge there comes to be developed a scientfiic instinct which leads to further progress in the chosen field. Of these higher instincts within men it has been eloquently said, "Their true history seems to be that they are in us but not of us. They passed through the highways of our life like the wire tivity is held by many scientists to be such as to amount to a practical impossibility. But the conclusion to which such considerations lead, that because a thing lies beyond ex- perience it is therefore inconceivable and practically impossible, proves too much, and, as Fiske observed, militates in the field of science as well as in that of philosophy. 68 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY paths for the electric current in the street; they carry forward with inexhaustible vigor the best work of humanity. But they do not seem to begin or end with this earth."* Even aside from the confidence which underlies all knowl- edge, science therefore, rests upon faith grasping certain ideals. It is rooted in the conviction that the universe reveals rational order and is, in consequence capable of interpretation. The growing development of science occurs first of all through a belief, then through the verification of that belief. But that verification at the same time affords a certain degree of proof that the regulative ideals of science are true expressions of reality. The essential ideals of science are real. II. Immortality as afi ideal of reason. 1. Immortality rests upon precisely the same basis as science in this respect. It is a reasonable expectation. Its verifica- tion can not be established experimentally, but perhaps what it appears to lose in this respect in the way of absolute certainty is more than made good by the greater university and persist- ence of the belief. It seems fair to conclude that a faith so persistent, involving, as we shall see, the best and worthiest in human life, if I'ejected as invalid must tend to create distrust of every other develop- ment of thought which rests on the principle of faith, including science itself. But on the other hand the degree of verification established in the field of science jgoes far to establish th^ pre- sumption that immortality also is the expression of the Real and will ultimately become for each one a fully experienced fact. 2 . To some it may seem too large an assertion that immortality has retained a place in the consciousness of men through every grade of civilization. A considerable amount of evidence has been accumulated which purports to show that even at present there exist tribes entirely destitute of the belief. It has been not uncommon that travelers have imagined they had found com- munities which were without any instinct of a future life. These conclusions have generally been found to have been hastily drawn. In some instances they have been subsequently re- tracted by their authors. Philosophers, explorers, mission- aries, even historians, such men as Darwin, Sir Samuel Baker, ^Gordon, Immortality and the New Theodicy, p. 112, THE REALITY OF THE IDEAL 69 Moffat, Niebuhr, have shown that it is not difficult to err in observations within this field. ^ Closer acquaintance with tribes believed to be destitute of any beliefs of this character have, in more than one instance, revealed ideas of continued existence even richer than would have been surmised. Instances of this kind have occurred among the tribes of Africa, South America, North America, Australia, and remote islands. Tylor records a curious illustration of this that occurred among the Ahts, a native tribe of Vancouver's Island. A Mr. Sproat spent two years among these people studying their characteristic habits, ways of living and modes of thought before he learned that they had any notion whatever of a future state. He then discovered that they had been striving to conceal from him "a whole characteristic system of religious doctrines as to souls and their migrations, the spirits who do good and evil to men, and the great gods above all."^ So many apparent exceptions have broken down under closer and more rigorous investiga- tions that Tylor and other careful students of the subject have concluded that ''belief in some sort of existence after death is found to be a catholic belief of humanity."^ And M. Renouf has recorded his judgment that *'a belief in the persistence of life after death, and the observation of religious practises found- ed upon the belief, may be discovered in every part of the world, in every age, and among men representing every degree and variety of culture."* A more recent French writer upon the subject voices the same judgment in somewhat different form: ''Cette idee a formee encore le fondement commun des traditions religieuses de tous les peuples qui ont ^t^ les educateurs de' V humanity civilisee, comme les Hindous, les Egyptiens, les Chaldeens ou les Gaulois, et on peut dire en un mot qu'elle resume en elle Tenseignement de la sagesse antique."* 3. The precise influence of the belief in immortality upon the development of culture is somewhat difficult to determine owing to its close connection with other beliefs and with religion in general. Yet that it has exerted a profound influence upon human life and conduct will be readily admitted by every >S. D. F. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, p. 12. »Tylor, Primitive Culture, 1. pp. 422. •Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality, p. 10. *Hibbert Lectures 1879, 4th ed. 1897. p. 124. >L. Elbe, La vie future, Paris 1905 p. 386. 70 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY thoughtful person. The judgment of Elbe concerning the wisdom of the ancients is no less true of the best in modern civilization. a. We have grown so familiar with that conception which regards the individual as having an eternal worth, that we seldom pause to consider the influence that conception has exerted in undermining institutions hostile to its spirit and in creating new institutions which recognize more fully the eternal value of a life. The well grounded belief that before God every individual is essentially equal to every other leads directly to the conclusion that wealth and rank should confer no title of precedence in civil affairs. The conviction that, before Him, master and slave stand upon an equal footing that ''there cannot be Jew and Greek, circumcision and un- circumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman,"^ has destroyed slavery in the state. It is impossible seriously to entertain such a conviction of the nature and destiny of man without finding that it enters into and molds our views of all human relationships whatever, individual and social. Let the conception become lodged in a sufficient number of minds that, without reference to rank, wealth or social prestige, men stand essentially upon the same level, each with an eternal worth, and sooner or later, from the working out of that principle, every form of servitude as between man and man must disappear. The lot of woman is made more tolerable. That conception of the individual is the bulwark of democracy and, in the field of government, tends to make the private citizen the ultimate ruler in affairs of state. Or let the conception that the human body is the temple of God take possession of a man's thought and he will pay more heed to habits that promote healthy and cleanly living than before. Let it become rooted in a community and it leads to every precaution that is practicable against diseases and vices that ruin and degrade. Or if the logical consequences of the thought that the growing life is taking upon itself a char- acter that is becoming fixed forever be drawn, men begin to see to it that the best possible opportunities be given every child and youth. It is undeniable that our motives for providing higher education within the reach of all, for reclaiming the erring through our system of reformatories and industrial homes, »Col. 3:11 (Am. Rev.) THE REALITY OF THE IDEAL 71 for caring for the orphaned, the blind, the indigent, the feeble- minded and insane, and for reforming prisoners and caring for them when discharged, are not merely utilitarian, having in view one's value to society, but have a deeper root in that essential trait of permanence in life as the result of which each one should have opportunity to develop the best life possible here and now. This conception of human worth is improving the industrial conditions of today, it enters even into international conditions and is a powerful factor toward the prevention of war and the introduction of the era of peace and good will. b. But the cultural value and influence of immortality is to be traced not only in the institutions which men have reared or demolished under its influence as social need has dictated. It may be traced as clearly also in poetry and the fine arts. And truly the fine arts in themselves have a cultural worth by no means insignificant. Take from poetry that part of it which is concerned with the themes suggested by death and destiny, and the best and most fruitful part of it would be by that act withdrawn. The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer not only present their heroes in their deeds of valor, but also portray their death and th^r state of being after death. Dante's Divine Comedy has for its theme the life beyond the present. Milton's great epic treats not only of the earthly life of man but also of his destiny. The great poems of the past century, of Shelley, Browning, Tennyson, Bryant, Longfellow, dwell much on these themes. It was the untimely death of his bosom friend, Arthur Hallam, that moved Tennyson to write his great poem In Memoriam, many of whose finest sentiments have become enshrined in the heart of the English speaking race. Quite in the vein of absolute idealism itself are the lines, so often quoted, "O yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood. That nothing walks with aimless feet, That not one life shall be destroyed Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. "^ 72 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY In short without the themes connected with death and human destiny poetry would, in very large measure, lose its charm and power of appeal. If it be objected that poetry is inspired by feeling and is, therefore, unworthy of being accepted as a teacher upon the deeper issues of life, it may be sufficient to point out with others that this is no more true of poetry than of other forms of mental life. But we are under no necessity here to vindicate the method of poetry in attaining its goal. The place of the poet in human culture is unquestioned. His influence is most profound and far reaching. Our purpose is simply to draw attention to the fact that a large part of his noblest, most powerful themes grow out of thoughts connected with the fact of death and its signifi- cance for human life. What is true of poetry is true no less of the fine arts in general. Medieval art in particular drew its inspiration from themes connected with the exalted destiny of man. Even the noblest works of architecture that adorn Europe today, the great cathe- drals, point in silent and massive grandeur the toiling, struggling mass of humanity at their base to the true goal of all their hopes and aspirations. c. It will be v/orth our while, to consider here more fully the place of the ideal in general within the moral consciousness, for these ideals, rightly interpreted, conduct us to the Eternal. Of these it has been beautifully said, ''We do not discover our ideals, they discover us. They take us to the housetop, as Samuel took Saul, and there, in the name of the new day that is break- ing, they tell us that we are kings." The note of permanence that gives confidence to our mental processes in the attainment of knowledge through the working of an Over-Mind is found also in the moral sphere, inspiring a similar confidence. The unity for which the moral nature of man hungers points to its high origin and its ultimate goal. It is grounded in the deepest Reality. It is this fact that gives strength and courage to the moral reformer in the face of the greatest opposition. It is this that inspires him to condemn the existing order as failing to express that which is highest and best and therefore most real. It was the Real within the moral consciousness which moved THE REALITY OF THE IDEAL 73 the 'early agitators for the abolition of slavery. One has but to ask whether it was the defenders of the existing order of things during slavery days, or the agitators for the complete abolition of ownership of human beings, who brought the real into our national life to receive answer in favor of the Abolitionist. The actual does not always represent the real. The ideal, however, as it becomes expressed in human life and affairs does give ex- pression to the real, to that which God ordained and will in the end make actual. It was the real that Cromwell stood for when he sought the emancipation of England. It was the real for which Luther did battle when he fought with heroic energy against the power of pope and emperor. A higher order than the existing one had uttered its voice in his inmost being with such force as to render him indifferent to any fate. That sub- lime courage in Paul, the Apostle, rendered him not unmindful of the heavenly vision in which he had caught sight of his life work among the Gentiles. Though in constant peril on land and sea, from enemies and false friends, from strangers and his own countrymen, even from fellow Christians of his own nation, none of these things moved him. He had caught sight of a higher order of things, and his great mission was to introduce that new order at all costs. All the advantages which had been his as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, as touching the righteousness of the law and zeal for it blamele^s,^ as one of the most gifted and most learned of his nation, yet withal enjoying all the rights of Roman citizenship, — all these he counted as refuse for the sake of a higher reality. As yet it was ideal rather than actual. But so impressed was he with the reality of the things which, though unseen, are eternal and so united in one- ness of fellowship with God that he is '* persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."^ No wonder, that under convictions of this kind and with such indomitable courage, the early advo- cates of the new faith made such inroads upon existing con- ditions and institutions that old things passed away and a new order, more fully expressing the divine reality, took their place. iPhilippians 3: 5-12. 'Romans 8: 38-39. 74 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY 4. In the course of our reflections upon the reality of the ideal we have been led to notice that it is the presence of the ideal element in science that makes it possible and trustworthy and that this ideal operates in and through the faith or confidence that the world everywhere displays the presence and activity of a mind that is cognate to the human mind. The most splendid progress of science has resulted from the leading of that faith or feeling, — or scientific instinct if the term be preferred. In all knowledge we have found this note of permanence grounded in the Over-Mind or Absolute as the basis of our confidence in the knowing process. The extent to which scientific faith has been justified by its degree of subsequent verification creates the presumption that a faith so much more universal and persistent in humanity through all ages and under every degree of culture can not be founded upon an illusion. Nor is a mere illusion capable of producing results so lasting and beneficial to human well-being in the advancing civilization of the race. Beyond estimate is the power of this ideal of immortality not only direct- ly in promoting the lifting up of backward peoples and in the improvement of general social conditions, but also indirectly in its influence upon poetry and the fine arts, many of whose noblest themes are furnished by thoughts of human destiny. In the ideals which impart moral tone and character to life, in constancy of devotion to a great purpose in the face of great opposition, in the feeling of an inward compulsion which leads men to disregard every personal comfort, even life itself, in the struggle to bring nobler and better conditions into human affairs, we rest upon that which is eternal. It is the Ultimate, the Real voicing itself in human life. The ideal of immortality is grounded in the Eternal. It expresses the real no less truly than the ideals of science and knowledge. It is in short "the verdict of the Infinite'* within the human consciousness, the voice of the Most High in man's inner being giving sentence in favor of the eternitv of everv human life. , . » • » ; » . ' • BIBLIOGRAPHY 75 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Arnold, Sir Edwin. — Death and Afterwards, London 1891. Bakewell, C. M. — Review of Strong's Why the Mind has a Body. Phil. Rev. 13:220. Bawden, H. H. — Meaning of Psychology from the Point of View of Functional Psychology. Phil. Rev. 13:298. Functional View of The Relation between the Physical and the Psychical. Phil. Rev. 11:474. Functional View of ParalleUsm. Phil. Rev. 11:299. Bradley, F. H. — Appearance and ReaUty, London 1893. Busse, Ludwig. — Geist und KOrper Seele und Leib. Leipzig 1903. Crothers, A. M.— The Endless Life. Ingersoll lecture. Boston 1905. Creighton, J. E.— The Standpoint of Experience. Phil. Rev. 12:593. Elbe, L.— La Vie Future, Paris 1905. 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W. Semple, Edinburg 1886. Lang, Andrew.— Mr. Myers' Theory of The Subliminal Self. Hibbert Journal 2:514. McCoU, Hugh. — Chance or Purpose. Hibbert Journal 5:384. Mackenzie, J. S.— The Hegelian Point of View, Mind (n. s.) 11 :54. MacLennan, S. F. — Trans-Subjective Realism and Hegelianism. Phil. Rev. 10:630. 76 ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND IMMORTALITY McTaggart, E. M. — Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, Cambridge 1901. Mellone, S. H. — Present Aspects of The Problem of Immortality, Hibbert Journal 2:722. Munsterberg, Hugo. — The Eternal Life, Boston 1905. Myers, F. W. H.— Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death. 2 vols. London 1903. Ormond, A. T.— Concepts of Philosophy. New York 1906. Osier, Wm. — Science and Immortality. IngersoU Lecture. Boston 1904. Ostwald, Wilhelm. — Individuality and Immortality. IngersoU Lecture. Boston 1906. Podmore, Frank. — Modern Spiritualism 2 vols., London 1902. Prince, Morton. — The Dissociation of a Personality. New York 1906. Some of the Present Problems of Abnormal Psychology. Congress of Arts and Sciences, Vol. V, Boston 1906. Pratt, Sereno S. — Our Deca5dng Faith in Immortality. Wall Street Journal quoted in Literary Digest Feb. 2, 1907. Rogers, A. K. — The Neo-Hegelian 'Self and Subjective Idealism. Phil. Rev. 10:139. Romanes, G. J. — An Examination of Weismannism, Chicago, 1893. > Royce, Josiah. — The World and The Individual. 2 vols. New York 1900. Conception of Immortality. IngersoU Lecture, Boston 1900. Salmond, S. D. F. — The Christian Doctrine of Immortality. Edinburg 1901. Savage, Minot J.— Life after Death, New York 1900. Schiller, F. C. S.— Humanism, London 1903. Seth, A. — Hegelianism and PersonaUty, Edinburg 1893. Shaler, N.— The Individual, New York 1901. Stout, G. F. — Mr. Myers on Human Personality. Hibbert Journal 2:44. Strong, C. A.— Why the Mind has a Body, New York 1903. Taylor, A. E. — Problem of Conduct, London 1901. Elements of Metaphysics, London 1903. Tylor, E. B.— Primitive Culture, New York 1874. Upton, C. B. — Bases of Religious Belief, London 1897. Ward, James. — Naturalism and Agnosticism, New York 1899. Watson, John. — The Absolute and the Time Process. Phil. Rev. 4:353, 486. Welldon, J. E. C— The Hope of ImmortaUty, New York 1898. Wheeler, Benj. Ide. — Dionysopi, and Immortality. IngersoU Lecture, Boston 1899. m. M OAV ANO TO "°00 o" ;he°s/""°""" OVERDUE. ™^ SEVENTH DAY MAft 20 .3J3 JUN iO 1833 •^^^ 21 1944 JUN 18 1944 JUN 10 1946 DEC i6 1947 JAN 3^ 1951 i-^ff Q^ ....oo ■^ ■REC'D LI OCTl* 20Jan'6CHC LD2Yti ■1,'3 GAYLAMOUNT PAMPHLET BINDER Manu/aclurtd by eAYLORD BROS. In<. Syracu**, N. Y. Stockton, Calif. /is ^ lAd^fM^ J^m^^u-^i*Y^'\ ^Uj^tA-L^^L.^^ U r^O DATE OF PERIODICAL ^7/^SUi,^. ik^ V '--'-^ l/J^ WcT-^^^ OUT TO ANOTHER BORROWER- WIA UBRARY CANNOT LOCATE C. ( .2. VOLUME ? ECK STATUS J I I FACULTY \\\iQ I IgRAD — IGENERAL I ' extended -JsPECiAL I I sle IsuMSESS I IREFERENCE SPECIAL REPORT ♦i fa»» ISJ — * 3! 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