The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism/Lecture 10

by James Ward

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.