220 IDEALISM AND POLITICS 



and applying to it metaphors derived from the physical, 

 or, at best, from the biological world. Idealists protest 

 and explain, and they will be heard in the long run. 



Sometimes the critics, like Mr. Hobhouse, show them- 

 selves in their objections to be the victims of a very simple 

 fallacy which would demonstrate the falsity of every Mon- 

 istic theory, whether it be a form of "spiritualism" or of 

 " materialism." It is the fallacy of concluding that things 

 which proceed from the same principle must have the same 

 value. It is the fallacy which charged the idea of evolution 

 with reducing man to the level of ' ' the ape " and ' ' the 

 oyster," on the ground that it maintains the continuity of 

 life. " Every institution and every belief is alike a 

 manifestation of a spiritual principle," says Mr. Hobhouse. 

 But every idealist and every evolutionist will repudiate the 

 word ' ' alike," with all its levelling implications. They 

 I maintain that identity of source need not signify equality 

 I of worth, or of significance, or even of reality. May I, 

 without insulting the critic's intelligence, make use of a 

 very simple illustration at this point? He would say, I 

 believe, that it is reason and reason only which can conclude 

 that 3 + 5 = 8. Would he also admit that it requires 

 reason to conclude that 3 + 5=19? Can a cow or a calf 

 add numbers wrongly, or does it require a child and the 

 working in him of a gradually dawning rational intelli- 

 gence? Surely errors in arithmetic have the same source 

 as truths ; they are reached by attempts to make use of the 

 same faculties and the same processes. And yet we are 

 not bound to conclude that the errors and the truths have 

 the same value. We identify their source without weaken- 

 ing the basis of reason, or softening the contrast between 

 truth and falsity. 



