Most men experience from time to time a wish to know something about the character of the larger reality in which they live, move, and have their being; something much more fundamental than any department of research classed as “scientific” can provide. And the most incurably practical of us has good reason for cherishing this wish. Metaphysics, i.e. inquiry into the general nature of reality, makes appeal first to the contemplative student interested in knowledge for its own sake, but it has a very noteworthy practical side as well. Few, like Earl Russell, can build the soul”s habitation on a “foundation of unyielding despair”; very many will not take life seriously unless its value, which must be lasting, is high. The problems stated by pessimism have to be solved; our burdens must be shown to be worth taking up strenuously. Religious consolations, once potent, are losing their force, and the danger of social decay has therefore to be countered. Let man suspect seriously that he is a day-fly, flitting about futilely a short while ere it perishes, and, whatever a few wild optimists may counsel, his big battalions are lost to progress. The East is right.

Indeterminism is opposed to the philosophic theory of determinism, of which Sir Arthur Eddington, in a recent pronouncement on this subject, 1 quotes three definitions. On the ground that it expresses unequivocally what we all feel to be the gist of the theory, he gives preference to the third, from Omar Khayyám:—

If there is one question which stands forth pre-eminently from among the many problems with which physical science bristles, it is that of the ontological status of the world which physics is exploring. What is reality in the eyes of science, and what are we to understand the physicist to mean when he refers to the “real world”? Can we agree with him when he assures us that physical science represents a progress towards pure truth? There seems to be a certain reluctance on the part of twentieth-century physicists to face the ontological question which I think their colleagues of the nineteenth century did not share to the same extent.

Since the appearance, nearly twenty years ago, of the first volume of Husserl”s Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, philosophers have been watching the development of a movement in Germany that has claimed attention through its opposition on the one side to the still powerful Kantian tradition, on the other to the trend of thought arising under the influence of biological science, aptly named by Meinong Psychologismus. The subtlety and originality of this new line of speculation and the exactness of its method have attracted to it some of the most powerful intellects of the country, whose contributions would repay a more detailed study than they have yet received from English or American scholars.

In actual practice the relation between history and sociology is very close. The sociologist of necessity derives his material from the data furnished by anthropology and history. On his side the historian, however eager he may be to confine himself to detailed and close narration of actual fact, cannot avoid reference to problems of causation or assumptions regarding human nature or the general course of human evolution, and so is a sociologist malgré lui. Again, though there are still not wanting some historians, such as v. Below, who deny sociology any status, most writers on the theory and methodology of history have come to regard the two disciplines as Hilfwissenschaften to each other. Closer examination, however, reveals considerable uncertainty and hesitation. This is due, firstly to widely prevalent doubts as to the scope of sociology, with regard to which it is said, not without some exaggeration, the sociologists themselves are not in agreement. It is due, secondly, to the fact that the issues raised involve reference to difficult problems in the theory of knowledge generally, in regard to which, in the present position of epistemology, agreement is hardly to be expected. In this paper I shall attempt firstly to define briefly the scope of sociology and discuss the bearing of my definition upon some recent representative views of the nature of historical investigation. Secondly, in the light of this discussion, I will endeavour to restate the fundamental points of our problem in the hope of bringing out more clearly the main issues involved.

Among the many outstanding features of Professor Stout's Gifford Lectures, Mind and Matter, there are two which possess special interest to readers of Philosophy: the author”s exposition of a more definite Realism than has been presented in his earlier works, and a renewed defence of the much-maligned faculty, Common Sense, here regarded as “a social product maintained and transmitted from generation to generation through the co-operation and conflict of many minds in thinking and willing ” (p. 8).

Mr. H. G. Wells once suggested that there should be three professors for every subject: one for research, one to write the textbooks, and one to lecture. There is a good deal of truth in the contention that the best philosopher is seldom the best teacher of philosophy. Although most teachers of philosophy are well aware of the fact that they are not great philosophers, and they are genuinely interested in the teaching of their subject, nevertheless there is a tendency for too much emphasis to rest upon their own researches. In consequence, too little attention has been paid to the technique of teaching philosophy.