in the fashion than " discourses on conduct." This is, as has always been the case, specially true of the work of the Neo- Kantians. Special notice is perhaps due to the important volume, Substanzbegrijf und Funktionsbegrif (1910), by the distinguished Neo-Kantian writer, E. Cassirer, which is specially valuable for its insight into the real character of the universals, or laws, of exact physical science, and for its criticism of the work done on the philosophy of mathematics by distinguished " new realists." In the sphere of " philosophy of religion " one may perhaps give special commendation to Evelyn Underbill's brilliant attempt to make a thorough study of the meaning and worth of the mystic " way of life " (Mysticism, 1910), as well as to the im- portant and elaborate restatement of the principles of " idealism," with special application to the problems of religion, by Prof. B. Bosanquet in his Principles of Individuality and Value (the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh for 1911) and its sequel, The Value and Destiny of the Individual (Gifford Lectures, 1912).
It was not much easier in 1921 than it might have been in 1910 to detect a single main stream of tendency in latter-day philo- sophical thinking. Perhaps, however, it may be said that some of the issues were slowly clarifying. Except possibly in Italy, where the Hegelian influence was marked in the work of Croce and Gentile, " absolute idealism " of the Hegelian type seemed to be losing ground. The veterans of the movement continued to produce impressive work. (It may be sufficient to mention, in addition to B. Bosanquet's two volumes, F. H. Bradley's Essay on Truth and Reality, 1914, and J. M. E. McTaggart's The Nature of Existence, vol. i., 1921.) But, at least outside Italy, the school no longer seemed to attract recruits among younger men. " Pragmatism " (or " Humanism ") seemed also, since the death of William James, to have taken its place definitely as a movement which had "done its do," and Bergson to be on the way to that canonization as a " classic " which means, among other things, that the canonized is felt to belong to the past rather than to the present. Nor had the philosophy of pure mathematics produced any work of absolutely first-rate im- portance since the third volume of the monumental Principia Mathematica of Whitehead and Russell. In 1920-1 the remark- able developments given to the doctrine of " Relativity " in physics by Einstein and others seemed to have caused a dis- placement of the centre of gravity of " epistemological " dis- cussion. For some time to come the most topically interesting problem for the " epistemologist " and the metaphysician was likely to be the evaluation of the new physical ideas from the standpoint of general philosophy, and perhaps the most signifi- cant fact in quite recent philosophical literature in the English language was the impression which had been produced by Whitehead's two remarkable volumes, Principles of Natural Knowledge (1919) and The Concept of Nature (1920). The future would show whether these works might not give rise to a new and brilliant Naturphilosophie with marked affinities to Plato in the Timaeus and to Berkeley. For the present, physics seemed likely to occupy the same sort of central position in philosophical speculation which mathematics had held since 1900.
As far as could be discerned in 1921, the main directions in contemporary philosophy seemed to be three.
(i) Theism of a strongly ethical kind with a metaphysical basis of " monadism " or " personal idealism " and definitely hostile to that depreciation of human individuality which was common among the religiously minded idealists of the latter part of the nineteenth century. The theists of this type commonly call themselves " idealists " and hold fast to the conception of a real unity of the world of persons in a supramundane God, whom the world would not refuse to speak of as " personal," though some of them would hesitate to call him a " person." Striking exam- ples of valuable works from this standpoint are James Ward's Psychological Principles (1918 the most philosophical treat- ment of psychology so far produced in Great Britain or perhaps in Europe); W. R. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God (1018); A. S. Pringle-Pattison, The Idea of God (1917); C. C. J. Webb, God and Personality (1918); Divine Personality and Hu- man Life (1920). xxxn. 4
(2) " Neutral Monism " in its various forms, all agreeing in the attempt to deny that disparateness of mind and matter upon which Descartes taught modern philosophy at its very inception to insist, and the desire, speaking generally, to reduce the importance of mind, " consciousness," " the subject " in the scheme of things, to a minimum. This tendency has, perhaps, been most marked in the United States of America, where it has given rise to a whole school of young metaphysicians calling themselves " New Realists " (in contradistinction from the older realists of the Aristotelian tradition) and has been carried into psychology, with some exaggeration of its distinctive point of view, by the so-called " Behaviourists."
In Great Britain the same tendency has been shown in the later work of B. A. W. Russell, but its most striking product was perhaps S. Alexander's Space, Time and Deity (1920), where the principles of " New Realism " are combined with the specula- tions of Minkowski, Einstein and others on " Relativity " in an attempt to take stock of the universe and its contents. As the result is to represent these contents as an hierarchical order in which mind, however low its real rank, at least holds the highest rank with which we are acquainted, it is perhaps not unfair to say that, in Mr. Alexander's construction, relativity is at any rate " relatively " more prominent than " new realism." There is a certain community of temper between the work of the " New Realists " and one or two important works on special topics which do not commit themselves unreservedly to any metaphysical standpoint, though they may fairly be said at least to be not " idealistic," such as C. D. Broad's Perception, Physics and Reality (1914) and J. Laird's Problems of the Self (1917). J. Laird's later work, A Study in Realism (1920), is much more decidedly in line with the " new realism," though (as might be expected from an author whose earlier book was chiefly notable for the vigour with which it defended the position that the self, while unquestionably real, is neither the body nor any part of it) free from the tendency of many " new realists " to depreciate the importance of mind in the scheme of things.
It was as yet too early in 1921 to feel sure what the value of this revival of " realism " was. As against the older tendency to regard Nature as very largely the creation of the human mind and, in fact, something of an " illusion " which happens un- accountably to be shared by every one, it may fairly be said to be largely justified, and it seems also likely to prove a serviceable ally to the moralist who believes in " objective " obligation against the perennial endeavour of the mere anthropologist to confound moral distinctions with capricious " personal " likings and dislikes. It is a strong point of the doctrine that it refuses to regard the universals of science and ethics as " figments " (like the older sensationalism), or (like Kantianism) as " creations of the mind." They are genuinely there " in the facts," and have to be accepted no less than the deliverances of sense as " part of the facts." In so far as the " realistic " tendency seems likely to deliver us in natural philosophy from the belief in a " material substrate " and the rejection of the wealth of " sensible qualities " to the realm of illusion, and in ethics from the theory that moral values are purely "subjective," it promises to do admirable work for the clarification of thought. But it may be suspected that some of the protagonists of the movement are too much in a hurry to philosophize with due discrimination. The " neutral monism " to which they seem to tend in metaphysics is no new thing, and one may doubt whether it really deserves to survive its drastic criticism by J. Ward at the end of the last century (Naturalism and Agnosticism, 1899). It seems probable that some of the dialectical victories of the " realist " are easily won by substituting the alleged dualism of matter and mind for the very different duality of knower and known. To deny that the universe consists of two classes of substances, radically distinct and disparate in all their properties, is one thing; to maintain, as some, if not all, " new realists " do, that minds might disappear from the universe and yet leave it with all its colours, tones, odours, perhaps with all its " values," unaffected is quite another. Reference to the " subject " of knowledge may be irrelevant to the discussion of particular problems in nature precisely because
