The Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism/Preface

by James Ward

 

PREFACE

THESE lectures are intended to serve as a sequel to the course delivered in the University of Aberdeen some ten years previously. If at that time I had foreseen that I should presently be favoured with the opportunity to lecture on the Realm of Ends or Pluralism and Theism I might well have entitled the earlier lectures the Realm of Nature or Naturalism and Agnosticism. There my endeavour was to establish the priority of the idealistic, or—as it seems clearer to to say—the spiritualistic standpoint; and here I have tried to ascertain what we can know, or reasonably believe, concerning the constitution of the world, interpreted throughout and strictly in terms of Mind.

At the outset, this world immediately confronts us not as one Mind, nor even as the manifestation of one, but as an objective whole in which we discern many minds in mutual interaction. It is from this pluralistic standpoint that our experience has in fact developed, and it is here that we acquire the ideas that eventually lead us beyond it. For pluralism, though empirically warranted, we find defective and unsatisfactory: but the theism to which it points is only an ideal — an ideal however that, as both theoretically and practically rational, may claim our faith though it transcend our knowledge. Such is a meagre outline of the present lectures. The summary contained in the last of them may take the place of further prefatory detail.

The two lectures on Hegel (Lectures VII and VIII) are, it must be confessed, largely a digression. It was my intention to treat of Kant’s philosophy in like manner — in both cases in order to substantiate the contention that anyhow, avowedly or not, pluralism is the starting point of speculation. But on second thoughts I felt that perhaps I had already done too much.

In Lectures XIX, XX I have embodied portions of a paper, entitled Faith and Science, read before the Synthetic Society in 1902. This has already appeared in a volume of that Society’s papers privately reprinted by the Rt Hon. A. J. Balfour in 1909.

The preparation and delivery of these lectures were frequently interrupted by an illness that began soon after my appointment and continued till its close. I desire to take this occasion to thank the Senatus of the University of St Andrews for their extreme patience and forbearance then and since; and I cannot but rejoice that now at last these lectures, all defective though they be, are through this indulgence out of my hands.

I have still to express my obligations to generous friends: first, and especially, to Professor J. S. Mackenzie of Cardiff both for his long and careful criticisms and for the arduous work which he kindly undertook of reading through all the proofs; again to Professor G. F. Stout of St Andrews for many valuable and astute comments; and finally to my colleague, Professor W. R. Sorley, not only for his literary help but for his continuous encouragement throughout my labours.

JAMES WARD.

Trinity College, Cambridge.

September, 1911.

P. S. A second edition of this book being called for within a year, it has only been possible for me to correct sundry misprints, which various friends have kindly pointed out, and to add at the end of the volume some Replies to Criticisms.

J. W.

July, 1912.