IDEALISM AND THE SELF
Not much advance has been made in Philosophy during the past quarter of a century. There has, to be sure, been a vast amount of writing. Much interesting work has been done in experimental and abnormal psychology; but its results are of doubtful value. There has been any amount of “pottering” in philosophical subjects, and ever so many “opinions” have been expressed, but the reasoning on which they are based leaves us in doubt whether they are to be taken seriously, or merely as freaks of speculation. Ever so many-isms have been invented and vaunted for a time—neo-realism, neo-idealism, pragmatism, Bergsonism, intellectualism, voluntarism, behaviourism and others—each claiming to be the whole truth, obscured hitherto, but now unearthed at last, and destined to supersede everything that has gone before. But the logic with which they are worked out is more suggestive of temporary fads of individuals than of permanent achievement. It is proposed here to take up a particular ism, and inquire into its real meaning and implications. It is one which seems of late to have been much abused and misused, viz., Idealism. Not neo-idealism, because the form here treated is very old, and we must master thoroughly the meanings of what is old, before we can safely presume to renovate it, or substitute anything new. Our purpose is to trace it back to its origin, and find whether it has got any ground to rest on, in experience and commonsense. Has it got any root in reality, that is, in facts of consciousness? or does it rise out of any fundamental principle that will always force itself back into attention, however much obscured and disregarded it may have been for a time?
Common use of the word Idea.—What then are we
