THE WORKING FAITH OF THE 

 SOCIAL REFORMER 



III 



THE METAPHYSICAL BASIS MINE AND THINE 



THE conclusions already reached : that Society is the product 

 and the expression of beings who are by nature rational or 

 spiritual, and that no rational relations are external or exclusive. 

 The great value of the achievement of Idealism in that it has 

 proved the dependence of the object upon the subject of 

 knowledge, or, in other words, that the real must be ideal. 

 The tendency of Idealism to dissolve the former in the latter 

 and thereby to become a purely subjective doctrine. Two 

 forms of this one-sided Idealism examined Dr. Ward's abstract 

 Pluralism, and Mr. Bradley's abstract Monism. How both 

 theories indicate the need of accentuating the self-differentiating 

 movement of spirit. The way in which spirit sets up its own 

 necessary order of objects as against itself illustrated in 

 Knowledge, which progressively represents reality as an inde- 

 pendent system ; in Morality, where the practical reason 

 represents the moral laws as categorical, and obedience to 

 them as nevertheless free ; in the Family where every member 

 is both subject and sovereign. 



That the same twofold movement of spirit is manifested in 

 Social life. How the Biological view of Society fails to 

 recognize, and the Economic view recognizes only indirectly 

 the fundamental principle that spirit preserves its opposite, 

 and itself through its opposite. The application of ethical 

 categories to Society, and its concurrent realization of the 

 private and the common good. 



