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The Philosophy of Religion'

E do not know any writer of our time who has advanced deeper and more luminously than Professor Royce into the heart of the problems of Theism, and this with a manifest warmth of religious feeling under steady control by rigorous logic. In his present work, as in its predecessors, he is concerned with the essential questions of the philosophy of religion. The same interest and the same general positions appear, but the argument takes a new form with a deepening significance. He undertakes here to show what we mean by Being, in general, and by the Reality that we attribute to God. to the World, and to the Human Individual-an inquiry which, though abstract in appearance, bears directly, as he says, upon the daily concerns of religion. It leads up in his argument to the conviction that "we have no other dwelling-place but the single unity of the divine consciousness. In the light of the eternal we are manifest, and even this very passing instant pulsates with a life that all the worlds are needed to express." The present series, the first half of the course given before the University of Aberdeen last winter, is largely devoted to clearing the ground for a presentation of the true nature and meaning of Individuality, a term much misunderstood, as the crucial point of the problem concerning the relations connecting God, the world, and the individual. We are thus conducted to a statement of it in the closing lecture, preparatory to the larger treatment awaiting it in the second series soon forthcoming. An elaborate Supplementary Essay concludes the volume, with which, however, we shall not deal, as it is designed for technical readers-a discussion of "The One, the Many, and the Infinite," in a critical reply to Mr. Bradley's profound work, "Appearance and Reality."

As Professor Royce observes, the task of philosophy, in the thinking both of children and of sages, is the effort of

The World and the Individual: Gifford Lectures, delivered before the University of Aberdeen. First Series: The Four Historical Conceptions of Being. By Josiah Royce, Ph.D., Professor of the History of Phílosophy in Harvard University. The Macmillan Company, New York.

Thought to comprehend Being, to arrive at Reality. And what common sense and science agree in reporting to us at the outset is a discouraging contrast between the internal meaning and the external validity of our ideas, i.e., between things as we conceive them and things as they are. This difficulty begins to be cleared when we discover that the truth or falsity of our ideas depends on what the purpose is which our ideas embody and attempt to attain. This consideration, essentially reached by Kant and Hegel, Professor Royce pronounces momentous and inex haustible, yet in some aspects too much neglected. In these lectures this consideration is elaborated in connection with a study of its relations to other conceptions of Reality which have dominated the religious and the scientific world.

In answer to the ultimate question of plilosophy, What is Reality? four conceptions of Being contend for the suffrages of thinkers. Two of these, the Realistic and the Mystic, the former represented by Kant's "Things-in-Themselves" and Leibnitz's "Monads," the latter by the Brahm of the Hindu and the Eternal of Spinoza, are the polar opposites of each other. These a rigorous dialectic, at once lucid and acute, conducts to logical agreement in "the realm of Nothingness," a reductio ad ab surdum of every definite finite idea of the Real. A third conception of Being, represented by Kant's later theory of "Objects of Possible Experience," is that of the Critical Rationalist, a modified and more coherent sort of Realism, which attributes real Being to whatever has been tested and verified by an experience confirmatory of our ideas. The defect of this is that it fails to reach finality. Much possible experience there is which one avoids testing, or cannot test. What is it, then? A mere conception? Then where is its Truth? An external fact? Then what is its Being?

Thus the argument approaches answer to Pilate's question, What is Truth?real Being. We find, replies Professor Royce, that "every step towards Truth is a step away from vague possibilities,

will." Holding that God's life, as the Absolute Reality in which all finite ideas find final fulfillment, sees "the single consciousness winning its purpose by virtue of all the ideas of all the individual selves and of all the lives," he affirms, as a consequent thereof, "that every finite purpose

and towards determinateness of idea and of experience." And again: "There is no purely external criterion of truth." Furthermore, we find that our ideas are essentially teleological, not mere images, but embodiments of a conscious purpose, intending some sort of correspondence with whatever object it selects to seek its... is a partial expression and attainsatisfaction therein. An idea is a will seeking its fulfillment by finding in its object its conscious purpose or meaning embodied in determinate form. Omitting here some auxiliary considerations, the conclusion reached is that true Being, the Reality that gives true ideas their truth, that which, if known, would end all doubt or error, is

an individual life, for which no other can be substituted. . . . In its wholeness the world of Being is the world of individually expressed meanings an individual life consisting of the individual embodiments of the wills represented by all finite ideas. Now, to be, in the final sense, means to be just such a life, complete, present to experience, and conclusive of the search for perfection which every finite idea in its own measure undertakes.

"In finding this world," asks Professor Royce," have we not been already led to the very definition of the divine life?" If this outcome of the discussion is sound, then, as he observes, the conception of Being, which is often regarded as the most abstract," is really the most concrete and living of all our ideas."

The ground thus being cleared for considering the problem of the World and the Individual, as involving the central questions of religion, the argument enters upon the task of a religious theory which holds to the sovereignty of God, the unity of the world, the freedom of the individual, and the deathless meaning of the life of each. The two concluding lectures are devoted to the two contrasting aspects of the idealistic world-first its unity, and next the individuality and variety of finite beings, and the relative freedom of their acts.

In his "Conception of God" Professor Royce, by no means an adherent of traditional theology, affirmed that what the faith of the fathers genuinely meant by God is the inevitable outcome of a thoroughly reflective philosophy. Fully accept ing the Pauline dictum, "in him we live," he gives full expression in these lectures to its inevitable corollary, "in him we

ment of the divine will, and also that every finite fulfillment of purpose. . . is a partial fulfillment of the divine meaning." Professor Royce, however, is conspicuous among monistic thinkers for the intense emphasis which he puts upon Individuality, while asserting the Universal Unity in which it often seems engulfed and lost. "The essence of the Real is to be Individual," i.e., the unique and only fulfillment of a purpose. "It is will in God and in man that logically determines the consciousness of individuality." "Except as consciously fulfilling a purpose, nothing can, logically speaking, exist at all." Now, the crux of the problem in any scheme of Idealistic Monism, such as this, is in the apparent antinomy between the One Will and the Many which emerges in the case of an evil will. This, which Professor Royce has elsewhere undertaken to solve, is not cleared in the present volume, though it thrusts itself forward provok ingly, as in the following: "When I thus consciously and uniquely will, it is I then who just here am God's will, or who just here consciously act for the whole. I then am so far free." But in this series the statement of the doctrine of the Individual is only begun, and we may expect our deferred satisfaction from its successor. Meanwhile we listen with deep satisfaction to two strong notes which resound throughout Professor Royce's philosophy; viz., the essentially teleological or purposive character of the universe of Being, and the essentially active character of our ideas, as more the expressions of a volitional and constructive consciousness than the impressions and images of external facts. It opens an outlet from agnosticism and materialism to see that knowledge is thus conditioned by creative

will.

The thoroughgoing affirmation of these principles as essential to any sound philosophy is by itself sufficient to give distinctive merit to the work of Professor Royce.

Books of the Week

This report of current literature is supplemented by fuller reviews of such books as in the judgment of the editors are of special importance to our readers. The absence of comment in this department in many cases indicates that extended review will be made at a later date. Any of these books will be sent by the publishers of The Outlook, postpaid, to any address on receipt of the published price.

Art of Breathing as the Basis of Cone-Production (The). By Leo Kofler. Illustrated. (Fifth Revised Edition.) Edgar S. Werner Publishing and Supply Co., New York. 52×8 in. 277 pages. $2. As It Is To Be. By Cora Linn Daniels. (Sixth Thousand.) Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 42X7 in. 294 pages. $1.

With marked differences, this is a book of the same type as Mrs. Phelps-Ward's "Gates Ajar," so much talked of in its day. It records a case of clairaudience. a record of con

versations with Voices, which, as a matter of fact, the author says she has held with unseen intelligences at frequent intervals. These conversations yield, through question and answer. copious descriptions of the invisible world, its society, principles, powers, and occupations. With a strongly ethical and religious tone, it is practically a wholesome book, whatever be thought of its revelations of the unseen things. Much of it is purely speculative. The old Platonic doctrine of ideas, eternal in themselves and of creative potency, reappears here, together with the Platonic and Gnostic doctrine that evil inheres only in material things-the author explicitly asserting that there is "no spiritual evil"-from which we strongly dissent.

Attainment of Womanly Beauty of Form and Features (The). By Twenty Physicians and Specialists. Edited by Albert Turner. Illustrated. The Health Culture Co., New York. 5x7 in. 256 pages. $1.

Aunt Hannah and Seth. By James Otis. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. 5×7 in. 109 pages 50c.

A somewhat sentimental story of a boy who is

frightened away from New York by a lawyer's advertisement asking for information about him, which he and his friends think is due to his having passed a lead nickel which had been given to him. The boy and his dog flee

from possible pursuit, and meet with pleasant country adventures before the matter is understood.

Autobiography of a Tomboy (The). By Jeannette L. Gilder. Illustrated. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. 4×7 in. 349 pages. $1.25. A very entertaining chapter from the life of an unconventional child and girl, to whom, by reason of her active temperament, happenings of all sorts were matters of ordinary experience; whose perils were many, whose pranks were more, and whose vitality, unconsciously diffused through this narrative, has a contagious quality. Miss Gilder has told her story with simplicity, frankness, and graphic skill. The directness of the narrative and its lack of self-consciousness separate it by a long distance from many books of its class.

"Beautiful Thoughts" from Robert and Elizabeth Browning. Arranged by Margaret Shipp. James Pott & Co., New York. 4x6 in. 380 pages. 75c.

Between Boer and Briton. By Edward Stratemeyer. Illustrated. Lee & Shepard, Boston. 5x7 in. 354 pages. $1.25.

A story of the adventures of two boys, one American, the other English, during the pres ent war in South Africa. The story bristles with action. The feeling between British and ity of especial value to young readers, and the Boers is pictured with a painstaking impartialadventurous spirit is sustained without flagging to the end.

Birds of My Parish (The). By Evelyn H. Pollard. Illustrations. John Lane, New York. 5x7 in. 295 pages. $1.50. A dainty, interesting volume, the finely printed pages and delicate photogravure illustrations of which accord well with the author's leisurely observations on the habits and secrets of the feathered friends of whom she writes. Although the author intimates that the immortal Gilbert White left little to be said concerning local birds, the reader soon discovers that no apology is needed for the present volume. It is the outcome of patient love and rare insight. The style is that of easy, picturesque narrative, and a good deal of the description is cast in the form of bird conversation, as the various families meet and live out their daily lives. This method lends vivid life and sympathetic charm to the telling.

Books that Nourish Us. By Annie Russell Marble. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. 434X7 in. 26 pages. 35c.

firmly touches numerous points of note, and In this brief essay Mrs. Marble lightly but gives judicious suggestions to those whose taste is as yet unformed, as well as wholesome cautions against the omnivorous gluttony which ends in mental indigestion and weakness. One who is asking, What shall I read? would do well to read this first.

Brownie. By Amy Le Feuvre. Illustrated. American Tract Society, New York. 6x8 in. 206 pages. $1.25.

Buffie and Brownie and Angelo, in their game of "Perils" and their rambles through wood and meadow, are happy companions for other children.

Child of Glee and How She Saved the Queen

(A). By A. G. Plympton. Illustrated. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 5x7 in. 300 pages. $1.50. This in a way is a child's version of "The Prisoner of Zenda," for a little American girl so strongly resembles the ten-year-old Queen of Avaril that she is able to impersonate her, thereby defeating conspirators who plot against her throne.

Christmas-Tree Scholar and Other Stories
(A). By Francis Bent Dillingham. Thomas Y.
Crowell & Co., New York. 54x7% in. 184 pages,
50c.
A story for every holiday-Christmas, New
Year's, St. Valentine's Day, Washington's
Birthday, Fourth of July-even the first of
April.

Complete Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett

Browning. (Cambridge Edition.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 52x8 in. 530 pages. $3. This substantial one-volume edition of Mrs. Browning finds its place in the Cambridge Edition of the poets, and in point of editorial intelligence and excellence of book-making deserves the select companionship of a group of books which present in the most convenient and accurate form a group of English and American classics. The text is the most authoritative. Mrs. Browning's use of italics and of capitals has been followed; the head notes to the poems are confined chiefly to biographical and bibliographical detail; criticism and comment from a literary point of view are to be found in the appendix; in which appears also Mrs. Browning's well-known paper on the Greek Christian poets.

Constantinople.

By Edwin A. Grosvenor. Introduction by General Lew Wallace. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 2 vols. 6x9 in. $4. Professor Grosvenor's two-volume work on Constantinople is reproduced in a new edition at a greatly reduced price. General Lew Wallace furnishes an introduction, and the volumes are enriched by two hundred and fifty illustrations selected for the purpose of interpreting the text and not simply to make the volumes attractive to the eye. The work, which was noticed at length on its appearance, promises to be one of permanent value.

Divided Skates. By Evelyn Raymond. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. 54x71⁄2 in. 127 pages. 50c.

A rather pretty story of a newsboy who is adopted by a wealthy woman. He becomes lonely in the great empty house, and the newsboys who were his companions are brought to share his home and its opportunities with him. English Literature. By Stopford A. Brooke, M.A. With Additions by George R. Carpenter. The Macmillan Co., New York. 42x63⁄4 in. 358 pages. $1. A new edition of what still remains the best and most satisfactory manual of English Literature, with additional chapters by Professor George R. Carpenter, of Columbia University, bringing down the story of English literature from the point at which Mr. Brooke left it through the period ending with the deaths of Tennyson and Browning, and a complementary chapter on literature in this country.

Essays, Letters, Miscellanies. By Count Lyof

N. Tolstoï. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. 44x7 in. 605 pages. $2.

To those who worship, not "the God of things as they are," but the "God of things as they ought to be," these are stimulating and often inspiring papers. The opening essays on war denounce even our war to end war in Cuba, but no one who really loves the gospel of peace can fail to be moved by them.

It is more than a half-truth which Count Tolstoï expresses when he says: "Patriotism may have been a virtue in the ancient world, when it compelled men to serve the highest idea of those days-the fatherland. But how can patriotism be a virtue in these days, when it requires of men an ideal exactly opposite to that of our religion and morality-an admission, not of the equality and fraternity of all men, but of the dominance of one country or nation over all others." Those interested in the temperance agitation cannot be urged too strongly to read Tolstoï's three essays upon it. The remaining essays cover a large variety of subjects, and, as we said in the beginning, are stimulating reading to all who do not accept the "piazza philosophy" "that nowadays nothing is wrong."

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Expatriates (The). By Lillian Bell. Harper

& Bros., New York. 5×71⁄2 in. 432 pages. $1.50. The first novel written by Lillian Bell is a distinctly notable volume, although here and there the over-fastidious critic may detect what seems to him rather amateurish aimings at theatrical effect. The story, as a whole, however, in plot, character-sketches, and style, is a distinctly strong and subtle effort. The scene is for the most part laid in Paris, and we have in particular a description of the awful conflagration at the Bazar de la Charité, at which the only killed and disabled persons were women--the men having all escaped! The cleverest part of the book, however, lies in the author's incisive descriptions of AngloAmerican-French society in Paris. Her frequent sarcasm is always apt and telling. Evangeline. By Henry Wadsworth Longfel

low. Edited by Lewis B. Semple, Ph.D. The Macmillan Co., New York. (Pocket English Classics.) 44x534 in. 137 pages. 25c.

Faith, Hope, and Love: A Handbook of Christian Truth for Children. Arranged by Rev. Oliver Huckel. John S. Bridges & Co., Baltimore, Md. 5x7 in. 29 pages. Paper bound, 15c.

Mr. Huckel thinks that children should commit more of the Bible to memory. He has prepared this catechism as a treasury of its choicest passages. Its emphasis is on Christian love and character. This is the third catechism that has come to us within the yeara fact indicative of a growing conviction both of the superior benefit of the old-time catechetical method and of the need of renovating its antiquated form.

Fate Mastered-Destiny Fulfilled. By W. J. Colville. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. 5x74 in. 52 pages. 35c.

There is more sound sense and helpful suggestion in this little book than in many of ten times its size. Mr. Colville has gleaned in divers fields, and his affinities with various schools of thought are evident, while we hesitate to class him wholly with any except the idealistic philosophers. The phrase so frequently in the mouth of the great Church historian Neander, "From within outward," expresses the core of his theory of the life that overcomes the world. "The greatest of all lessons is so to behave in the midst of turmoil that our influence will produce a great calm." For our influence is really our effluence. Our thoughts furnish our shields. In them may

be realized "an illimitable dynamic energy." "Concentrate and meditate," not in Hindu but in Anglo-Saxon fashion; this will be forceful in the West or East. Mr. Colville is a true optimist, and in his own way endeavors to enforce Spencer's maxim, "Hasten the evolution." Fifer-Boy of the Boston Siege. By Edward A. Rand. A. I. Bradley & Co., Boston. 5×7%1⁄2 in. 326 pages. $1.25.

It seems safe to forecast that this will be one of the popular boys' books of the season. It is a well-told version of a perennially popular subject-the opening of the War of Independence in the colonies. Cast in the form of fiction, with the fifer-boy as hero, it yet preserves intact the main facts of history.

Fortune's Boats. By Barbara Yechton. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 5x8 in. 357 pages. $1.50.

The story of a family of girls-their love affairs and their ultimate happy marriages. Mildly interesting, but by no means exciting.

Golden Legend (The). As Englished by William Caxton. The Temple Classics. Edited by F. S. Ellis.) The Macmillan Co., New York. 4×6 in. 257 pages. 50c.

Helen Beaton, College Woman. By Adelaide L. Rouse. A. I. Bradley & Co., Boston. 5×8 in. 292 pages. $1.25.

There is handling of serious questions in this book-as the sub-title might lead one to suspect. It deals only with the closing college days of a quintette of girl chums, whose talk and actions are depicted in sprightly and engaging manner.

Hour of Opportunity (The). By Orison Swett Marden. Assisted by Abner Bayley. 5x7 in. 54 pages. 35c. Good Manners and Success. By Orison Swett Marden. Assisted by Abner Bayley. 5x74 in. 64 pages. 35c. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York.

Mr. Marden's larger books are admirable presentations of incentives to strenuous and noble living. He has done well for those who are partial to small doses to put into these dainty white booklets the same wisdom and enthusiasm for making the most and best of one's self. The first should be read especially by those young men who think that the world's opportunities are smaller now than formerly; the latter especially in that too-neglected school of the "minor morals," the family home. Mr. Marden does not preach to his readers, but his anecdotes and bits of personal history carry points and stick. Excellent giftbooks for young folk are these two. Life of Francis Parkman (A). By Charles Haight_Farnham. With Portraits. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 512x8 in. 394 pages. $2.50. Reserved for fuller comment. Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen of Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury. Edited by Benjamin Rand, Ph.D. The Macmillan Co., New York. 54x9 in. 535 pages. $4. The English moralist whose unpublished works, obtained from the Shaftesbury Papers now in the Record Office at London, are issued in this volume, stands alone among moderns in the triumvirate who chiefly represent the Stoical philosophy. A gulf of centuries separates him from his compeers, the Greek slave Epictetus and the Roman Emperor Marcus

Aurelius. His "Regimen," as he termed the reflections in which he endeavored to find the right principles of life and to apply them to his own conduct, comprises half of the present volume. He was the first moralist, says the late Professor Sidgwick, to demonstrate a normal harmony between disinterested social affection and a reasonable self-love; the first, also, to find the basis of ethics in psychological experience. The publication of this volume invites fresh critical study from the Stoical standpoint taken in his "Characteristics," which marked, says Sidgwick, “a turningpoint in English ethical thought." His heretofore unpublished correspondence, aside from its philosophical, political, and literary interest, reveals in his benevolent interest in promoting the aspirations of struggling young men the same philanthropic spirit which his descendant, the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, so conspicuously illustrated in our own times.

Literary Essays of Thomas Babington Mac

aulay. Selected by George A. Watrous. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York. 4×6 in. 321 pages. 50c. In this very tasteful little volume Mr. Watrous has brought together some of Macaulay's most characteristic essays. His best work was not literary, but historical; but these Essays are such agreeable reading, are so full of his qualities of style, and are so conspicuous in the English literary history of this century that no student can afford to leave them unread. They have never before been put in a more convenient form.

Little Dreamer's Adventure (The). By Frank Samuel Child. Illustrated. Lee & Shepard, Bos ton. 434×7 in. 230 pages. $1.25.

This little book is well described by its sub-title "A Story of Droll Days and Droll Doings." Mr. Child has great knowledge of and love for the family and religious life of colonial times in New England; and his affectionate study of that period has borne fruit in more than one interesting record. He also has great love for children; this book, although entirely independent, is in one sense a continuation of an earlier story with the charming title "The House with Sixty Closets." "The Little Dreamer's Adventure" has to do with an ingenious arrangement and interpretation of the days and seasons, very cleverly conceived and executed, and with a meaning which is obvious without being intrusive. Mr. Child has assumed the possession of considerable cleverness on the part of the children who read his book; they will find much that is ingenious and entertaining in it; but it is to be hoped that it will not lead them into the habit of punning.

Lost Continent (The). By Cutcliffe Hyne. Illustrated. Harper & Bros., New York. 5x73⁄4 in. 353 pages. $1.50.

The lost island of Atlantis is certainly a good starting-point for a tale of mystery and marvels. The imagination displayed is of the same order shown by Rider Haggard's "She." Neither book belongs to literature, but both are fertile in a crude imaginative power. Here some intensely modern Englishmen traveling with a kodak and filled with a love of romance find a wonderful manuscript-as is customary

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