208 IDEALISM AND POLITICS 



featureless sameness ; others accuse it of the opposite error 

 of maintaining confusedly "the altogetherness of every- 

 thing " ; and others again select from its opposing phases 

 those elements which offend themselves and ignore the 

 rest. 1 No philosophy ever offered to the votaries and 

 victims of the categories of exclusion, who will have 

 every question answered with a downright ' ' Yes " or 

 "No," so ample an opportunity for misapprehension and 

 caricature. Indeed, it is somewhat difficult to account for 

 the obstinacy with which this theory refuses to be laid, so 

 offensive is it to those who rely, like Mr. Hobhouse, "on 

 the plain, human, rationalistic way of looking at life and 

 its problems." 



Can it be that the real world, which Idealism tries 

 to comprehend, has the same perverse way of maintaining 

 unity amongst differences, and that man is the same 

 baffling mixture of many elements ? Can it be that Ideal- 

 ism in utterly rejecting the exclusive assumptions of the 

 older theories is trying to take things just as they stand ? 

 In any case it is certain that its main challenge to the 

 abstract theorists who will see only one of many conflicting 

 aspects is that they come to the facts. "Is it not true," it 

 asks, ' ' that the world is a ' One in the Many ' ? Do we 

 not all alike assume whenever we begin to think of it and 

 try to comprehend its facts that it is a rational order within 

 which facts cohere and events are linked together? And 

 what is the whole endeavour of all the sciences, or the very 



1 There is a whole school of writers on philosophy at the present time 

 almost any minor member of which betrays his upbringing by never 

 referring to any Idealistic statement without adding a " but " which 

 detracts. They are as reluctant to admit that Idealism contains any 

 truth, as Carlyle was to admit that the Celtic peoples had any virtues. 



