December 29, 192 1] 



NATURE 



559 



the practice at present followed by some municipal 

 authorities of over-charging for gas and electricity 

 in order to relieve the rates should be discontinued.. 

 Certain of the Committee's recommendations are, 

 it must be confessed, rather in the nature of counsels 

 of perfection, but the Report is,- on the whole, a 

 business-like document, and the Committee's pro- 

 posals are, as it says, " prosaic but practical." 

 The Report is unanimous and commendably short 

 and to the point. As the latest word on the im- 

 portant question with which it deals, it is well 

 worthy of the attention and consideration of all 

 interested in the pressing problem of smoke abate- 

 ment. 



Christian Theism. 

 Studies in Christian Philosophy, being the Boyle 



Lectures, 1920. By the Rev. Prof. W. R. 



Matthews. Pp. xiv-i-231. (London: Macmillan 



and Co., Ltd., 1921.) 125. net. 

 •^ I ""HIS book may be commended to the notice 

 X of such as wish to know what can be said 

 by a theologian possessing- the broad outlook of 

 the philosopher, and equipped with a knowledge 

 of recent philosophical literature, as to the intel- 

 lectual claims of Christian theism ; it represents 

 a good type of the kind of justification of theistic 

 belief with which a Christian would desire 

 thoughtful inquirers to be acquainted. It does 

 not profess to break new ground, and, save for 

 reflections on minor points, it does not offer 

 critical or constructive contributions such as have 

 not in essence been made before ; but it is char- 

 acterised by ability in a degree sufficient to en- 

 gender curiosity as to its possible sequels, at which 

 its author hints. If, in a later volume, the 

 author intends to deal with the Christological 

 problem on lines suggested by his remark 

 (p. 54) that Christian theology has often 

 treated the relation of Jesus to the Father 

 "as a puzzle in ontology rather than a 

 moral fact," his future readers will be interested 

 to see how he will avoid the ontological issue, and 

 how, in emphasising the moral aspect of the rela- 

 tion in question, he will evade difBculties in con- 

 nection with theodicy. Another obiter dictum 

 (p. 164) concerning the reconcilability of the trithe- 

 istic and the modalistic or unitarian interpretations 

 of the doctrine of the Trinity arouses a similar curi- 

 osity ; and if the author's hope of effecting such a 

 reconciliation be based on his objection (p. 226) to 

 the distinction between adjectival and substantival 

 existence as a misleading one, it may be 

 worth while to point out to him beforehand that 

 NO. 2722, VOL. 108] 



the objection which he has urged does not apply 

 to the real distinction, without which logic would 

 become impossible, but only to a perverse mis- 

 representation or obliteration of it. 



But, to speak of the present work itself, the 

 lectures deal with such subjects as the Christian 

 view of the world, ethical theism, the moral argu- 

 ment, and the ideas of personality and creation ; 

 and their main purpose is to show that, among the 

 various forthcoming endeavours of philosophy to 

 explain or interpret the world and man. Christian 

 theism is not only a "live option," but is also in- 

 tellectually the most satisfactory — the best induc- 

 tive hypothesis. With this main position, and with 

 the conclusions of all (save one) of the author's 

 lectures, I am in too close agreement, in the main, 

 to be a useful critic ; but, inasmuch as expression 

 of criticism or of difference of opinion is what a 

 writer chiefly hopes for from a reviewer, I may 

 the less reluctantly confine myself, in the re- 

 mainder of this notice, to the chapter on the moral 

 argument for theism. 



This chapter, the most brightly written in the 

 bright and lucid volume, is to me unconvincing. 

 Fully to explain why would involve a general dis- 

 cussion of the whole theor}' of value ; consequently 

 I must risk being but imperfectly intelligible to 

 my readers until they also have become readers 

 of Mr. Matthews 's book in taking for considera- 

 tion here a few of his contentions as they stand, 

 and in isolation from the general theory which 

 they presuppose. 



First, though one may agree with his proof 

 that naturalistic ethic is absurd, and that the 

 authority of moral judgments cannot be explained 

 in terms of their survival-value, or as a matter of 

 man's relation to his physical environment, one 

 may dispute that theism is then directly thrust 

 upon us as the only alternative. Man's environ- 

 ment includes humanity, and the capacity for 

 thought which may be a result of adaptation to 

 environment, once acquired, can thenceforward 

 be applied to matters of the non-utilitarian kind. 

 Man's morality, the exposition of which is but 

 theoretic judgments on facts pertaining to the 

 practical or conative side of human experience, 

 thus calls no more for the direct invocation of a 

 Deus ex machina, or of a Logos endiathetos, than 

 does man's mathematical science. The same 

 applies to man's moral progress. Pluralism, 

 which Mr. Matthews here rules out, as it seems 

 to me, for an irrelevant reason, may hardly 

 account for such moral harmony as we find, and 

 may promise no ultimate achievement of the 

 highest good ; but that it is irreconcilable with 

 such knowledge as we have concerning moral 



