Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/104

90 CEITICAL NOTICES : position of a consistent Eelativism, but they also lay bare the thorough-going scepticism which it involves. No one view is truer than another, so that the notion of truth entirely disappears. If we are to interpret the phrase ' relatively true ' so as to avoid this scepticism, it can only mean that the knowledge or truth in question was ' the best approximation to knowledge or truth ' attainable by the individual or period under consideration. Our knowledge r that is to say, is never complete ; and, therefore, though true so. far as we possess it, it is always subject to revision and modifica- tion through fresh discoveries and the attainment of a more com- prehensive point of view. When the phrase is so understood, however, we may be said to pass from Relativism pure and simple to Progressivism "the doctrine that the changes which history shows us in the prevalent beliefs of, let us say, our own society,, exhibit a progress from less to more of knowledge and truth" (p. 196). But progress in knowledge implies the notion of an objective standard of truth, just as social progress or improvement implies some criterion of the good or. the ethical End. In pro- nouncing any belief to be ' truer' (i.e., a nearer approximation to truth) or any ethical practice or social state to be ' better ' than another, we are making assumptions for which Sociology alone can furnish no justification. A purely historical or sociological survey shows us one phase of belief or practice following on another ; it shows us the different causes at work producing the transition, but it gives us no canon for estimating their relative truth or value. In fact a consistent Sociology has no place for the notion of truth ; it judges opinions solely from the point of view of their social emciency. The only question it asks about any series of changes is " whether it tends continually to increase the social organism's power of preserving itself under the conditions of its existence" (205). The terms social ' welfare ' and ' development ' are often used by sociologists instead of, or along with, preservation, but I understand Sidgwick to argue that both these terms carry us beyond the bounds of pure Sociology. An organism adapts or adjusts itself to its environment and is so preserved, but this gives us no clue to ' the direction in which the series of self-adaptive changes is tending ' and does not legitimate any conclusions as to ' develop- ment ' or enhancement of ' welfare '. Progressivism is discussed (in Lectures x. and xi.) chiefly in connexion with social progress as the wider though vaguer notion. The discussion is fuller than that devoted to other topics in the volume, and the details are interesting, but it hardly seems to move with the same directness towards its goal. The main positions advanced are that even if we restrict ourselves to the idea of ' self-preservation,' many self- adaptive political changes may be pointed to which were not of advantage to the particular society in the struggle for existence. Progress in civilisation (in the arts of industry and peace, literature and the fine arts, etc.) may be a source of dangerous weakness in conflict with other social groups. And if we turn to the case of