GENERAL DEFINITION 41 



the unity of all things, giving to each department of 

 reality its true and rational place in the totaHty of 

 things. 



Without undertaking an elaborate discussion of 

 monistic theories, we may group them all under the 

 descriptive heads of ideaHstic, substantial, and teleo- 

 logical.^ Idealistic monism tends to identify thought 

 and reahty, and reduces the objective world to subjec- 

 tive terms of consciousness. Such a view is too ab- 

 stract and subtle to gain a permanent hold upon the 

 general intelligence of mankind. Substantial monism 

 reduces all reality to one homogeneous substance. 

 The pantheistic Spinoza formulated such a conception 

 of things, and his view has had immense influence in 

 modern thought. Its most conspicuous weakness 

 appears in its failure to do justice to the phenomena of 

 personality, freedom, and morahty.^ Substantial mon- 

 ism may take either a spirituaHstic or a materialistic 

 form, and Professor Haeckel is a champion of material- 

 istic monism.^ Teleological monism acknowledges 

 the substantial dualism of spirit and matter; and refuses 

 to ignore either the essential difference between God 

 and His creatures, or the mutually separate reahty of 



1 Cf. Sir O. Lodge's subdivision, Life and Matter^ pp. 6-8. 



2 Cf. pp. 16-21, above. 



3 Exhibited in his Riddle of the Universe and his other works. It 

 is criticised from a theological point of view by J. Orr, God's Image 

 in Man, pp. 67-78, 82-89; ^^^ from the point of view of modern 

 science by O. Lodge, Life and Matter, who points out, on p. 42, that 

 Haeckel's explanation of life and mind is equivalent to an assertion 

 that matter possesses them. See p. 94, below. 



