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IDEALISM AND ITS RECENT CRITICS*

HASTINGS RASHDALL

It is a matter of common knowledge among those who take any interest in philosophical speculation that the dominant tone of English philosophy during the last halfcentury has been idealistic: and I suppose there cannot be much doubt that the center from which this wave of idealistic thought has spread was Oxford, though the earlier influence of Ferrier and others in Scotland must not be ignored. In one of his books, which appeared somewhere in the early seventies, Mr. John Morley (as he then was) writes in a triumphant strain as though Empiricism—and all the enlightenment which Empiricism is in some quarters supposed to bring with it-were now finally enthroned at Oxford and probably in the civilized world generally. Superstition had now at last been vanquished in its ancient home, "the home of lost causes. When he wrote, Lord Morley had some excuse for this tone of exultation. Of the keen and progressive young men at Oxford and elsewhere a large proportion had accepted more or less completely the philosophy of John Stuart Mill. His book on Logic had become virtually, though not officially—the recognized text-book of the subject for the Schools. His

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* Lectures delivered before the Philosophical Union of the University of California, 1913.

ascendency was not perhaps even then so complete as Mill's enthusiastic disciple was disposed to imagine. During Lord Morley's time at Oxford, Mansel was still there, and was teaching a sort of Kantism;-but the halfGerman, half-Scotch system of Mansel was too much associated with very conservative politics and still more conservative theology to be attractive to young men of liberal tendencies: and in those days to be intellectual generally meant to be at least mildly liberal. But even while Lord Morley was writing, the tide (little as he knew it) had already turned. In 1860-a year after Morley took his degree-Thomas Hill Green became a college tutor at Balliol, settled himself down to the study of German philosophy, and soon began to teach a philosophy inspired by Kant and by Hegel. He imparted his leading ideas to Edward Caird, who at an early age was transferred to Glasgow and there established another influential center of idealistic influence. When I went up to Oxford in 1877, Green was unquestionably the most powerful philosophical influence in the place. The Greenian philosophy was not undisputed. We approached the issue between English Empiricism and German Idealism with a sense that our choice was not altogether a foregone conclusion. Many able college tutors were Millites, and the pupils of such tutors were often quite uninfluenced by Green. To be a Millite was not yet considered the proof of hopeless unintellectuality and philosophical ineptitude which it afterwards became. But there could be no doubt which force was in the ascendant. One disciple of Green after another became a college tutor, and the school soon began to assume all the airs of dominant orthodoxy, even a partial dissent from which was to condemn oneself to the reproach of "metaphysical incompetence.'

The next great metaphysical influence which was brought to bear upon Oxford was Mr. Bradley's-an influence exerted through his books and through other teachers who read those books, for Mr. Bradley himself has never

held any educational post. This influence was, of course, idealistic too, though it gave Idealism a different—and a much less religious-turn. Wallace was another influential idealistic teacher, and Professor Bosanquet's books were much read, though he himself resigned his tutorship before he began to exercise much influence as a teacher. Altogether at the end of the nineteenth century Idealism seemed to be established as completely as any philosophy could well be in a community in which philosophic intolerance did not go to the length of positive proscription. The appearance in 1895 of a book of essays by writers who from very different points of view were hostile to the dominant Bradleyan "Absolutism"-a volume in which Dr. Schiller first began to adumbrate the system or absence of system since called Pragmatism-was not a revolt against Idealism. It was a quarrel within the camp. It was a revolt against the dominance of the Bradleyan Absolutism, but the fact that they were all Idealists of one kind or another was just the one connecting link between the very discordant views expressed in that work.

At the present moment all this has been changed. If anybody were to ask what system was in the ascendant in Oxford now, I am afraid he would have to say "Realism." The question of the source of this Realism is almost too personal for public discussion. The ultimate source of it is, I believe, to be found in the teaching of Professor Cook Wilson. Professor Cook Wilson began as a pupil of Lotze, but gradually became more Hegelian in his thought. He was one of those Idealists who emphasize the distinction between subjective and objective Idealism to a point at which the difference between Realism and Idealism begins to be apprehensible only to very subtle minds. Among his most appreciative disciples was a young Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, who with every desire to do so, had, I believe, never been able to swallow Idealism. He had never been able to satisfy himself that the tables and chairs no longer existed when he left the room, or to disabuse him

self of the notion that this is what Idealism implies. The Idealist would say, of course, that he never understood Idealism: the Realist will, of course, reply that he always saw through it. And at length he satisfied himself that Professor Cook Wilson thought about matter very much what the man in the street thinks about it. I do not venture to say how far his leader would accept such an estimate of his ideas. And he had the courage-those who do not know Oxford from the inside do not know how much courage it impliedto say so. The effect can only be described as electric. Mr. Prichard was a member of a circle of philosophical friends who were much in the habit of discussing philosophical questions with each other; and one member of this group after another announced his conversion to Realism. The men who had never been comfortable about Idealism, though they had bowed the knee to the dominant authorities, the "soft Idealists" (to use an expression of Professor James) who had used idealistic language without quite meaning it, the men who had begun to mistrust Idealism because a turn was given to it which they disliked, suddenly discovered extraordinary force in the arguments which they had hitherto ridiculed. In particular Mr. Prichard was fortunate enough to capture for a time Mr., now Professor, J. A. Smith, a teacher of philosophy whose brilliant dialectical powers had given him, in spite of his silence in print, extraordinary influence at Oxford. Professor J. A. Smith has since publicly announced his reversion to Idealism. That event may perhaps enable the belated Idealist still to hold up his head in Oxford. But there can be no doubt that Realism is gaining ground among the younger men, if the forces are not very unequally divided among the teachers. Whatever may be the truth of the matter, there can be no doubt that Realism is the creed of the natural man. It is the easier creed to learn; and the student who discovers that Idealism is being laughed at by professed teachers of philosophy is usually quite ready to follow suit -especially if it is whispered to him that the only Idealists

left are certain theologians who are using Idealism for their own dark purposes.

I have thought it would not be uninteresting to you to hear something about the state of opinion on this subject at Oxford. But I need not say that this sudden volte-face is not an isolated phenomenon. I do not think that there has been quite such a sudden and complete revolution in the philosophical world generally. Not only do Idealists (outside Oxford) still occupy important chairs, but a great wave of idealistic and spiritualistic thought seems to be affecting men who have approached philosophy from the point of view of physical science. More than one eminent man who began not merely as a Realist but as a Materialist has ended in Idealism. If we cannot claim Bergson as an Idealist in the strictly technical sense of the term, he can equally little be set down as a Realist-certainly not as a Realist of the Oxford stamp. I will not therefore, especially here in California, speak as though Idealism was a defeated and declining creed. But undoubtedly we have heard in England and America of more than one new Realism. There are several new Realisms in England; in America, I understand, their name is legion. And therefore I thought it might be interesting if I attempted to examine the kind of arguments which are now being used against Idealism. I shall confine myself to the lines of thought which I find have most influence with my Oxford friends, leaving you to judge for yourselves how far they do or do not coincide with the tendencies which prevail on this side of the Atlantic.

You will not expect me to go over the whole ground of the Idealist-Realist controversy. I must assume that you are acquainted with the main arguments urged in favor of Realism. The plain man of course starts life as a Realist. When he sees a green tree, he thinks that the tree is green whether he is looking at it or not. A very little reflection will generally convince him that there is no meaning in calling flowers red or blue, water hot or cold, sounds loud or

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