The scientific world-outlook is something quite different from natural science. The word “science” in its legitimate modern usage represents both a kind of knowledge and the method of obtaining that knowledge. By “science” we may mean an objective body of facts and relationships concerning the physical world and arrived at by the scientific method of observation and reasoning—preferably quantitative observation and mathematical reasoning: thus we may say that the law of constant proportions is a part of the science of chemistry. But we may also use the word science to denote that scientific method which I have just mentioned: thus I may say that science is the key to the investigation of nature—or that some inaccurate or biased piece of work is unscientific. Science, in either of these senses, does not contain any world-outlook, for it is quite impersonal. Thus science in the first sense consists of certain statements and relationships e.g.—that sulphur is yellow, that Jupiter has eight satellites, that all solutions of acids in water conduct electricity; while the scientific method indicates the manner in which from the data of our sense-impressions we can infer statements and conclusions, such as the above, which will be found to represent the phenomena correctly. But a scientific world-outlook means something different, because it is a world-outlook, the attitude of a man or woman towards the whole of that of which he or she is conscious.

It is not infrequently said that the true justification of moral beliefs lies in theology. I wish here to examine precisely what is meant by this contention, and by what arguments, if any, it can be substantiated.

The view I am examining is not that the only valid reason for doing what is right is a theological reason (e.g. the fact that God wills it); as if we could know independently of theology what was right, but required a theological motive to make it reasonable to do it. It is rather that the very fact that it is right is logically dependent on certain facts of a theological nature; or, to express the matter otherwise, that from certain theological propositions it is possible validly to draw certain conclusions in the form of propositions which state what I ought to do, and that this fact is the source of the validity of these latter propositions.

This, however, is not yet a sufficiently precise account of the theory in question, since it might cover a number of different contentions, some of which I think may be reasonably maintained, while others, I think, may not. I propose to work towards a clearer formulation by considering certain arguments which have been advanced in order to deny outright the very possibility of arguing validly “from theology to ethics”; for I do believe that these arguments prove something, and rule out certain theories as untenable.

It is an odd thing that after two and a half centuries' experience of representative government—if we take the 1688 Revolution as ourstarting point—we have still no very certain or coherent theory of what it represents. The easy-going eighteenth-century idea that their own sense of political responsibility and the ties of political sympathy uniting them to the people at large enabled representatives chosen from among the “natural” leaders of the nation adequately to fulfil their representative role, despite the meagre measure of choice exercised in their denomination; and the rather later notion that the function of a representative system was to reflect the class structure and dominant interests of the nation, have both failed to survive criticism at the hustings, and the spread of political consciousness associated with the rise of democracy. Modern ideas identify representative government with self-government, and insist on applying to it Colonel Rainboro's dictum that “the poorest he (or she) that is in England hath a life to live, as the richest he.” On the subject of what representative government represents there may nowadays be distinguished two views; what may be called the popular, or hustings view, and the academic theory, which, while different in form, preserves the same general character as the hustings view.

The hustings view is unqualified majoritarianism. Representative government is government by the will of the majority. Certain ideas underlying, or associated with this view may profitably be distinguished. The most important is that of individual right. Majoritarianism is no respecter of tradition, or birth, or inborn talents, or acquired experience; it is no respecter of persons at all, only a counter of them. In its view there is no species of authority that gives one person or class of persons the right to push others around; everyone, indeed, has a presumptive right not to be pushed around.

By a “world-outlook” I mean a systematic account of the nature of the world which claims, by showing the place of man in the scheme of things, to indicate the point and purpose of his life. The theory of the world is often called a metaphysical theory and the theory of conduct an ethical or moral theory. In my opinion the clarification and criticism of world-outlooks is a fundamental part of philosophy. Indeed, I hardly think that philosophy would have existed as something distinct from science or poetry but for the tendency to attempt some explanation of the world as the scene of human endeavour. When Kant referred to “the inevitable problems of pure reason” about “God, freedom, and immortality,” he was referring in a summary way to the fundamental philosophical task of analysing and criticizing world-outlooks, a task that may be undertaken even by those philosophers who do not believe that any world-outlook is or could be adequate. It is clear, of course, that the civilized religions, since they seek to show how human conduct fits in with some Divine Plan or Cosmic Conflict, have world-outlooks. It is, however, misleading to look upon religions and world-outlooks as the same thing, as some people do. For in ordinary usage religion involves belief in supernatural beings and conduct regulated in the light of this belief, but according to some world-outlooks (e.g. that of Spinoza) there are no supernatural beings, while according to others (e.g. Epicureanism) beings may exist deserving that description but human conduct need take no account of them.

The present situation in philosophy is paradoxical. On the one hand, thinking men and women all over the world are exclaiming that, while science has made sufficient advance to satisfy all our material needs, what we most need, and must find if we are not to suffer shipwreck, is a new sense of values, a new religious awakening and a new orientation towards life, in short a new philosophy. On the other hand, many professional philosophers are coming to hold the view that philosophy has had its day, or rather that it never in any proper sense had its day, because it is not a rational enterprise but a mistake, an illusion, a farrago of nonsense, “a muddle arising out of the complexities of language.” A new inquiry which goes by the name of Analysis and resembles logic more closely than any other existing discipline is at once to give the quietus to philosophy and to reign in its stead. The modern philosopher cries, with Faustus, “Sweet Analytickes! 'tis thou hast ravished me.” I will not prejudice your minds at the outset by recalling where the study of analysis led the Doctor of Wurtemburg.

Those who are thus forthrightly sceptical about philosophy and group themselves under the aegis of analysis are themselves divided into a number of sects. One and all, however, are relentless in exposing the weaknesses of philosophy, zealous in proselytizing and deadly in expounding their new technique which combines scholastic subtlety with modern scientific realism. They represent in fact a modern scholasticism loosely grouped round the dogma: “We pursue logical analysis, but not philosophy,” though, by a curious paradox which demands scrutiny, some of them say: “Philosophy is analysis.”

During my student days at Edinburgh I became particularly interested in Aristotle's doctrine of God as Final Cause. Concern with other problems and periods of Philosophy, along with many years of teaching in most of its branches, has kept me from ever writing anything down on the subject except in the very briefest way. But it has always seemed to me to claim fuller attention than is commonly accorded to it. That Aristotle's conception, however independently it was worked out, owes much to the philosophy of Plato appears to be beyond question. The design of the present article is to relate Aristotle's view on the subject with that of Plato. I will first state Plato's allied doctrine; then, after indicating Aristotle's criticisms of Plato, so far as relevant to the subject, summarize his argument for his own position; and, lastly, consider the significance of the concept concerned.

Preoccupation with language is a notable feature of modern philosophy. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the influence of language on thought, and particularly its influence on philosophical thought, is a leading topic of philosophical discussion in this century. Every philosopher of any note, no matter what his general interests may be, has found it necessary to define his attitude to this problem. The attitude usually adopted consists of an admission that language does have a great influence on thought, and on philosophical thought in particular. More accurately, it is claimed that the structure and grammatical categories, and perhaps the vocabulary, natural to a particular language, determine the lines of thought and speculation open to any thinker who uses that language (Note 1).This determination is unimportant in many cases, because the results of our thinking are usually subject to check by appeal to empirical facts. In philosophical thinking, however, no such check is available by the very nature of the case. Accordingly, we cannot tell if the difficulty or apparent insolubility of a philosophical problem is due to the problem itself, or simply due to inadequacies in our language. In a different language, so it is suggested, the problem which is difficult for us might very easily be solved. Indeed, there might not then be any such problem, or its solution might be self-evident in this other language. This is the moderate attitude to the language difficulty in philosophy, and it is fair to say that it is almost universally adopted at the present day. In some circles it has acquired the prestige of an indisputable dogma.

Is The Prelude a philosophical poem? It is, of course, many things besides: it is an autobiography; it contains profound reflections on psychology, education and politics; and there are passages of an almost purely lyrical character. Does it also contain philosophical poetry?

On this question, the critics of Wordsworth are divided. Coleridge and Raleigh answer Yes; Arnold, Bradley, Dr. Leaves, from their different points of view, agree in answering No. I believe that the first answer is right, although it has usually been supported by the wrong reasons. I believe the second answer to be wrong, although many of the arguments that are supposed to lead to it are in themselves sound enough. Those who say that The Prelude is not a philosophical poem, usually mean that it does not offer a coherent system of philosophy—that it expresses an original outlook and a personal wisdom, but that the only systematic philosophy in it comes at second-hand from Hartley or Coleridge and contributes not at all to the poem. And this is largely true. But the mistake is, to identify philosophy with system, philosophizing with “a philosophy.” This is a mistake that has been repudiated again and again by many of the greatest philosophers, from Socrates and Plato to Locke and Kant and others.

I shall argue that The Prelude achieves philosophical poetry, because in it Wordsworth grapples with philosophical problems—problems which arise out of the story of his own early life—which are actually forced upon him by the poem itself; and because he tries to answer these problems in a way which would be possible only in poetry.

This essay is an attempt to take stock of what has been done by those who have worked on the foundations of mathematics and to suggest, very inadequately in so short a space, what may be a satisfactory approach to this subject for one who is not an expert in it. The subject is one that neither mathematicians nor philosophers can any longer afford to ignore, but in the technicalities of which they may not be very interested.

(1) Property a psychic link. W. James on self and mine. (2) Acquisition and conservation in the light of expectation. (3) Expectation in philosophy and psychology. (4) Baldwin and property. (5) Bentham. (6) Why acquisitions are conserved. (7) Property as the basis of expectation and as witness of foresight. (8) Possessive pronouns. (9) Animals and children. (10) Property viewed objectively by Petrucci and subjectively by Bentham.

The phrase philosophia perennis is said to have been first used by Leibniz. It has been adopted and freely employed by the Catholic Neo-Thomists, for whom it means a development of the Aristotelianism, modified by strong Neoplatonic elements, which Arabian scholars transmitted to the first Renaissance in the West. It claims also to be a return to the early Christian philosophy of religion, a fusion of Hellenistic and Jewish thought, the latter itself a syncretistic religion with many Persian and other borrowings. The controversy, directed against various modern philosophies, has been conducted with great ability by such writers as Gilson, Maritain, Sheen, Watkin, Dawson and D'Arcy, whose books would perhaps have received more attention from independent thinkers, but for the suspicion which surrounds apparent attempts to revive the methods and inhibitions of the medieval schoolmen.

There has been a parallel movement in the Orthodox Eastern Church, represented in Russian by Frank, Bardyaeff, Solovioff and Lossky. These writers are more Platonic and more fearlessly mystical than the Thomists. Origen in the East has more weight than Augustine.

It is one of the unfortunate habits of great philosophers to leave behind them unclarified points of doctrine which give headaches to those anxious to view their systems as coherent wholes, and often lead to considerable confusion, or even contradiction, in attempts at critical exposition. An outstanding example of this is furnished by Descartes' treatment of “simple natures.”

To interpret what Descartes really meant by simple natures as described in the Regulae ad directionem ingenii, and to integrate this with what he said in his published works (where they are not mentioned as such) is by no means an easy task—as the differing views of various critics clearly indicate. One has only to compare, say, the expositions of Chevalier, Boyce Gibson and Keeling to see that there is little unanimity of opinion as to the actual connotation of simple natures, their proper role in the Cartesian metaphysic, their terminological equivalents in the Meditations and Principles, and their ontological as opposed to epistemological status. Many critics, as Dr. Keeling complains, have seen fit “to discuss them when treating of his (Descartes') method, and omit all reference to them thereafter.” To make any comprehensive attempt to sort out this critical Verwirrung, however, would require considerable space. What I shall do here, therefore, will be to state the problem as simply as I can and then offer a solution in the light of the evidence available—although I admit that short of recalling Descartes from his grave there can be no final solution.

After an interruption of seven years I take up once again my surveys of Italian philosophy. Many things have happened in the interval, but it is perhaps too soon for them to be susceptible of calm philosophical reflection. The problems that most interest the cultured public to-day are those of existentialism, of historicism and its limits, of German romanticism, and, more generally, of Germanic culture in relation to new spiritual orientations. The interest in existentialism is due, at least in part, to the fact that it is the philosophy in fashion. But there is in it nevertheless a depth of seriousness that is not overlooked. The tragedies of recent years have placed in the foreground the problems of immediate existence, of human personality and its place in the world, which the preceding idealistic philosophy had too easily absorbed in an impersonal and trans-subjective view of the spirit and its universal values. And, as has often happened in the course of history, there has resulted a reaction of individuality, in its most irrational and vital expressions, against the pretensions of reason to dominate it from above, and imprison it in the net of its concepts.

But if, in this regard, existentialism represents a just demand, which can exercise a beneficial influence on philosophical thought, yet to many its claim to represent a new era in philosophy seems excessive. Its value is only that of an episode. Hence some interpreters of contemporary thought have been drawn to limit the importance of the new movement.

Philosophy of history is not a subject which has hitherto attracted much attention in this country. Preoccupation with the methods and achievements of the natural sciences, and distaste for the sort of rationale of history as a whole which Hegel and others offered under the title in the early nineteenth century, have served to make most British philosophers accord its problems only the most casual recognition. It is therefore all the more interesting to find an English writer of unusual powers both of argument and expression, who was himself an historian of distinction in his special field, devoting a large part of his philosophical thinking to the problems of historical knowledge and their wider implications. Unfortunately, R. G. Collingwood was not able to begin the major work on philosophy of history, to writing which, as we are told in the introduction to the present book, he had looked forward for twenty-five years, until his powers were seriously affected by bad health, and he did not live to complete it. But though the full results of his thinking on the subject are lost, we are now able, thanks to the skilful work of his friend Professor T. M. Knox, to study what is in effect an extensive interim report on it. Professor Knox has produced The Idea of History largely on the basis of lectures which Collingwood prepared in 1936, supplemented by two essays already published which date from the same period and a certain amount of material from the unfinished Principles of History written in 1939.

The last survey of philosophy in France to appear in this journal was published in July 1939. Although the circumstances of the war do not seem to have prevented the publication of philosophical books in France to the extent that they have done so in this country, they have pretty effectively limited their transmission across the Channel until the last year or two. In consequence it is by no means easy to re-establish continuity between the publications of the pre-war period and the rather random trickle of new books now being received by the editor of Philosophy. Some useful information on the intervening period is contained in an article by Professor Lalande in the Philosophical Review for January 1946 (Vol. LV, No. 1). Readers of this article or of the files of the Revue Philosophique will find that in 1940 occurred the deaths of Abel Rey, known for his work on science in the ancient world, and of the philosopher and sociologist Célestin Bougié. In 1941 Bergson died. 1944 saw the death of Léon Brunschvicg, whose Descartes et Pascal lecteurs de Montaigne appeared that same year. Jean Cavaillfès, a logician known for his works published in 1938 on the axiomatic method and the theory of groups, was shot by the Germans for his part in the resistance movement. Maurice Halbwachs, for many years associated with the Année Sociologique died in Buchenwald in 1945. As for books that appeared during the war, I have not seen Professor Le Senne's Traité de Morale Générale, which appeared in 1942.