CURRENT TENDENCIES 29 



been increasing with unexampled rapidity, and promises 

 to increase in the future beyond all easily assignable 

 limits. Thus alongside of despair as regards ultimate 

 theory there is an immense optimism as regards practice : 

 what man can do seems almost boundless. The old 

 fixed limits of human power, such as death, or the de- 

 pendence of the race on an equilibrium of cosmic forces, 

 are forgotten, and no hard facts are allowed to break in 

 upon the dream of omnipotence. No philosophy is 

 tolerated which sets bounds to man's capacity of gratify- 

 ing his wishes ; and thus the very despair of theory is 

 invoked to silence every whisper of doubt as regards the 

 possibilities of practical achievement. 



In the welcoming of new fact, and in the suspicion of 

 dogmatism as regards the universe at large, the modern 

 spirit should, 1 think, be accepted as wholly an advance. 

 But both in its practical pretensions and in its theoretical 

 despair it seems to me to go too far. Most of what is 

 greatest in man is called forth in response to the thwart- 

 ing of his hopes by immutable natural obstacles ; by the 

 pretence of omnipotence, he becomes trivial and a little 

 absurd. And on the theoretical side, ultimate metaphysi- 

 cal truth, though less all-embracing and harder of attain- 

 ment than it appeared to some philosophers in the past, 

 can, I believe, be discovered by those who are willing to 

 combine the hopefulness, patience, and open-mindedness 

 of science with something of the Greek feeling for beauty 

 in the abstract world of logic and for the ultimate intrinsic 

 value in the contemplation of truth. 



The philosophy, therefore, which is to be genuinely 

 inspired by the scientific spirit, must deal with somewhat 

 dry and abstract matters, and must not hope to find an 

 answer to the practical problems of life. To those who 

 wish to understand much of what has in the past been 



