xni HUMISM AND HUMANISM 233 



but not to rehabilitate philosophy or religion. Lastly, he 

 neither generalizes the principle nor claims for it any 

 theoretic validity : i.e. for Hume, as for the rationalist, 

 and as for Kant, there is still an implicit dualism between 

 theory and practice, and a sort of independence of the 

 former, even though this redounds only to its own 

 confusion. 



II 



On the whole, therefore, it can hardly be contended 

 that the classification of Humanism as Humism is either 

 a very exact or a very fruitful way of assimilating the 

 new to the old. Nay, we may go farther and maintain 

 that upon some of the most important points of philosophi 

 cal debate there is a profound antithesis between Humism 

 and Humanism, and a very marked congruity between 

 the former and Rationalism. To illustrate by three 

 typical cases: (i) Rationalism and Humism are both 

 intellectualism ; Humanism is not ; (2) both deny the 

 conception of Activity, which Humanism emphasizes and 

 exploits ; (3) Rationalism has in consequence to accept 

 Hume s criticism of Causation, whereas Humanism is 

 enabled to reject it. 



The first of these points is really so obvious that a 

 simple statement would suffice for it, if it did not lead to 

 far-reaching consequences which have not yet been 

 observed. As it is, it may be well to point out that, from 

 a voluntarist standpoint, the differences in intellectualisms 

 are quite secondary. Rationalism and Sensationalism 

 can always strike up an alliance against Voluntarism 

 which is cemented by their common appeal to a dark, 

 dumb, irrational, and inexplicable background of feeling. 1 

 In the shadow of vague terms, whose inveterate ambiguity 

 extends back to the days of Plato, 2 all voluntary action 



1 Mr. Sturt (Idola Theatri, ch. v. and ix. ) has done good service by point 

 ing out how essentially this conduces to the &quot; passivism &quot; of a rationalistic 

 intellectualism like Mr. F. H. Bradley s. 



2 Who in the Theaetetus (1568) includes pleasure, pain, and, desire in the list 

 of ai 



