The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism/Lecture 10
LECTURE X.
PSYCHOPHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL DIFFICULTIES IN PLURALISM.
There is one difficulty which the exposition I have
attempted to give would so readily suggest, that it is
perhaps best to mention it at the outset. The goal
of final harmony and unification on which the personal
idealist counts as — a far-off event, it may be, but still
as — a rational possibility may yet never be attained,
however rationally possible, because of what we
ordinarily call physical hindrances. Let these consist, if
you like, of the actions of inferior — sentient it may
be — but still irrational monads: the disaster would be
none the less appalling on that account, nor is its
possibility for that reason very seriously diminished.
For we have had meantime to allow that millennial
dreams of a liberation of Nature from the thraldom
of so-called physical evil are as fanciful as the legends
of this subjection as a consequence of moral evil. It
is true there are modern pluralists, Renouvier certainly
and probably Dr Howison, who still defend such views
of the solidarity of the cosmos. But if we smile at
Fourier when he imagined that, so soon as we have
learnt to dwell in brotherly love together, the whales
will seize our ships by their cables and tow them
to their destinations over seas no longer briny but
pleasant to drink, must we not regard it as still more Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/223 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/224 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/225 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/226 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/227 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/228 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/229 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/230 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/231 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/232 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/233 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/234 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/235 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/236 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/237 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/238 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/239 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/240 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/241 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/242 Page:The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism (1911).djvu/243 M = φ(ABR) or φ(ABR) = M, for the mere equation
gives no priority to one side over the other; if it can
be shown that M is more than the name we give
to a plurality of reals A, B, C, . . . , whose functional
relation is symbolised by φ — that M is in fact itself
the one absolute reality, and φ the relation which ‘its
individuality as a self-conserving unity’ imposes upon
its several differentiations or modes A, B, C . . . — all well
and good. But the mere formula will not accomplish
this. Taken as an abstract formula it may suggest
either alternative, but taken as a description of the
universe or mundus, M, regarded empirically or
a posteriori, it is no longer equally ambiguous. From
this immanent standpoint M does not resolve the
wonder, it merely names it. If we are to get any
further we must assume that M is transcendent, an
ens extramundanum, to use Kant’s phrase; and this
all theism does that is worthy of the name. Then,
however, A, B, R will no longer be merely modes or
states of this M. But to express the relation of this
transcendent Being to the world of experience no
equational formula seems either appropriate or adequate.
Theism, however, promises to effect much in resolving
the difficulties of pluralism, and to the careful discussion
of theism I propose to devote the second part of these
lectures. Meanwhile I think we must insist that the
way cannot be cleared in any summary fashion by
convicting the pluralist’s Weltanschauung not merely
of incompleteness but of actual contradictions. In
fact, if it were radically infected with contradictions,
we have seen, I trust, that the way to theism would
be hopelessly barred; for from pluralism speculation
really always has and always must begin.