constructs. It is a great accomplishment to construct a philosophy of nature which shall do justice to the facts on which the theory of relativity is based; but is it not going too far to say that such a philosophy alone can give us meanings for position, perpendicularity, timeless space, and various other concepts that we as a race have been using for centuries, before the theory of relativity was ever thought of? This criticism, if valid, would not invalidate Professor Whitehead's general theory; it would only invalidate the claim made for it that it alone, of all extant theories, gives meaning to certain current and practically justified conceptions.
I am not sure that I have understood Professor Whitehead aright. On so many points where at first I had thought I had found him wrong, I have come after study to revise my judgment. It may be that further study will necessitate a revision here. But up to the present it appears that the above criticism is justified.
The book is not easy reading. It is very difficult reading for a man who has not had much mathematical training, and perhaps most philosophers have not had much. But one of the merits of the theory of relativity is that it requires us to polish up our mathematical equipment. But so far, it seems to me that the greatest philosophical achievement of the theory of relativity is the fact that it has brought forth a work of such profound philosophical importance as The Concept of Nature. Every philosopher should not only read it, but study it; and when he does, he will undergo a searching of heart. The prestige of the author will secure for him many readers among men of science—they will inevitably revise their old conceptions; and from the fact that in this book philosopher and scientist will have to meet, much good will come, at least to the philosopher.
University of Wisconsin.
Contemporary critics of idealism should read this book. Whatever its effect on their metaphysical theories it could not fail to enlarge their over-limited conception of idealism and to convince them that idealism is not bound to take either one of the two shapes in which they are wont to attack it, to wit, a subjectivism derived from Berkeley and an impersonal monism of the Bosanquet type.[1] And
- ↑ For a recent instance of criticism of this sort, cf. S. Alexander, Space, Time and Deity, Vol. I, pp. 5-7.
