duce the residuum to physical terms, and with no Goodness and knowledge can hope of success. not be explained as mass and force, or shown to be mechanical necessities. $ 210. Are we then to conclude that reality is not physical, and look for other terms to which we may reduce physical terms? There is no lack of such other terms. Indeed, we could as fairly have begun elsewhere. Truth of Psychical Relations, but Impossibility of General Reduction to Them. Thus some parts of experience compose the consciousness of the individual, and are said to be known by him. Experience so contained is connected by the special relation of being known together. But this relation is quite indifferent to physical, moral, and logical relations. Thus we may be conscious of things which are physically disconnected, morally repugnant, and logically contradictory, or in all of these respects utterly irrelevant. Subjectivism, in that it proposes to conceive the whole of reality as consciousness, must attempt to reduce physical, moral, and logical relations to that co-presence in consciousness from which they are so sharply distinguished in their very definition. The historical failure of this attempt was inevitable. § 211. But there is at least one further start ing-point, the one adopted by the most sub and elaborate of all reconstructive philosophie Truth of Logical and Ethical Principles. Validity of Ideal of Perfection, but Impossibility of Deducing the Whole of Ex perience from it. Logical necessities are as evidently rea as bodies or selves. It is possible t define general types of inference, 2 well as compact and internally neces sary systems such as those of mathe matics. There is a perfectly distinguishable strain of pure rationality in the universe. Whether or not it be possible to conceive a pure rationality as self-subsistent, inas much as there are degrees it is at any rate possible to conceive of a maximum of rationality. But similarly there are degrees of moral goodness. It is possible to define with more or less exactness a morally perfect person, or an ideal moral community. Here again it may be impossible that pure and unalloyed goodness should constitute a universe of itself. But that a maximum of goodness, with all of the accessories which it might involve, should be thus self-subsistent, is quite conceivable. It is thus possible to define an absolute and perfect order, in which logical necessity, the interest of thought, or moral goodness, the interest of will, or both together, should be realized to the maximum. Absolutism conceives real ity under the form of this ideal, and attempts to reconstruct experience accordingly. But is the prospect of success any better than in the cases of materialism and subjectivism? It is evident that the ideal of logical necessity is due to the fact that certain parts of knowledge approach it more closely than others. Thus mechanics contains more that is arbitrary than mathematics, and mathematics more than logic. Similarly, the theory of the evolution of the planetary system, in that it requires the assumption of particular distances and particular masses for the parts of the primeval nebula, is more arbitrary than rational dynamics. It is impossible, then, in view of the parts of knowledge which belong to the lower end of the scale of rationality, to regard reality as a whole as the maximum of rationality; for either a purely dynamical, a purely mathematical, or a purely logical, realm would be more rational. The similar disproof of the moral perfection of reality is so unmistakable as to require no elucidation. It is evident that even where natural necessities are not antagonistic to moral proprieties, they are at any rate indifferent to them. $212. But thus far no reference has been made to error and to evil. These are the terms which Cannot be Reduced to the Ideal. the ideals of rationality and goodness must rept ate if they are to retain their meaning. Neve Error and Evil theless experience contains them a psychology describes them. We have already followed the efforts which abs lute idealism has made to show that logical per fection requires error, and that moral perfectio requires evil. Is it conceivable that such effort should be successful? Suppose a higher logic t make the principle of contradiction the very bori of rationality. What was formerly error is now indispensable to truth. But what of the new error-the unbalanced and mistaken thesis, the unresolved antithesis, the scattered and discor nected terms of thought? These fall outside the new truth as surely as the old error fell outside the old truth. And the case of moral goodness is precisely parallel. The higher goodness may be so defined as to require failure and sin. be maintained that there can be no true success without struggle, and no true spiritual exaltation except through repentance. But what of failure unredeemed, sin unrepented, evil uncompensated and unresolved? Nothing has been gained after all but a new definition of goodness-and a new definition of evil. And this is an ethical, not a Thus it may etaphysical question. The problem of evil, like ne problem of error, is as far from solution as ver. Indeed, the very urgency of these problems s due to metaphysical absolutism. For this phiosophy defines the universe as a perfect unity. Measured by the standard of such an ideal universe, the parts of finite experience take on a fragmentary and baffling character which they would not otherwise possess. The absolute perfection must by definition both determine and exclude the imperfect. Thus absolutism bankrupts the universe by holding it accountable for what it can never pay. § 213. If the attempt to construct experience in the special terms of some part of experience be abandoned, how is reality to be defined? Character of It is evident that in that case there can Collective the Universe as a Whole. be no definition of reality as such. It must be regarded as a collection of all elements, relations, principles, systems, that compose it. All truths will be true of it, and it will be the subject of all truths. Reality is at least physical, psychical, moral, and rational. That which is physical is not necessarily moral or psychical, but may be either or both of these. Thus it is a commonplace of experience that what has bulk and |