NA TURE 



[JuLV 4, 1907 



SOllE ASPECTS OF HUMANISM. 

 (i) Studies in Humanism. By Dr. F. C. S. Schiller. 



Pp. xvii + 492. (London : Macmillan and Co., 



Ltd., 1907.) Price los. net. 

 (2) Lectures on Humanism. By Prof. J. S. Mackenzie. 



(The Ethical Library.) Pp. vii + 243. (London: 



Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd., 1907.) Price 



4s. 6d. 

 (I) T IKE the youth in "Excelsior," Mr. Schiller 

 J--< has a strangle device upon his banner, for his 

 motto is " Back to Protagoras." But it is on no soli- 

 tary or hopeless enterprise that he is engaged, for do 

 not all the most fruitful developments of present-day 

 philosophy point to Pragmatism, and have not all 

 the sages of all times, when they were talking sense, 

 been talking Pragmatism without knowing it? 

 Kant, of course, was of us when he gave primacy to 

 the practical reason and when he announced as his 

 main principle that reality is largely of our making. 

 Even Plato, who here suffers many hard knocks, is 

 perhaps not so complete an intellectualist as he is 

 generally thought, if Prof. Stewart's theory can be 

 substantiated, 



" that the so-called Socratic dialogues, so far from 

 being scientifically negligible, are really essential to 

 the "complete statement of the Ideal Theory, and 

 should be taken as exemplifying the function of the 

 Concept in use, and as supplementing the account of 

 the abstract concept given in the dogmatic dialogues, 

 on which alone the traditional descriptions of 

 Piatonism have been based." 



But after all it is to the strangely misunderstood 

 Protagoras, and his principle that man is the measure 

 of all things, that the world owes most. If only we 

 had his complete works and not fragments — and not 

 Plato's caricature of his philosophy! Then many 

 things would have happened ; among others we 

 should not have had the amusing dialogues (contain- 

 ing a prophetic reference to the scholars from 

 Rhodes) which Mr. Schiller has " translated from the 

 Greek " to fill up the gaps in our knowledge. 



So it is Intellectualism in all its forms, Piatonism, 

 Hegelianism, and that tyrant who has oppressed us 

 so many years — Absolutism — that Mr. Schiller wishes 

 to dethrone. His criticism is always well worth read- 

 ing. On the other hand, his own system contains 

 not a few features which will give many pause — a 

 God who is essentially finite; a reality which is 

 always incomplete and plastic, in which laws of 

 nature are merely the habits in which things behave ; 

 an idea of truth which involves the almost hylozoistic 

 position that inanimate bodies know us in some 

 sense (on the level of their understanding) when we 

 operate upon them. The dust of controversy which 

 in this volume beclouds the battlefield will have to 

 settle before it can be decided where most of the truth 

 lies. One wonders — it is genuine Pragmatism to 

 know results before one states principles — what the 

 issue will be; whether the lively Troglodyte of three 

 decades from this will be engaged in proving that 

 new Humanism is but old Absolutism grown more 

 dogmatic and arrogant, or the nco-.-'ibsoIutist of the 

 period in demonstrating that Absolutism and 

 NO. 1966, VOL. 76] 



Humanism are both partial aspects reconciled in a 

 higher unity. 



About half the essays contained in this volume 

 have already appeared in a shorter form in various 

 periodicals. But most of the constructive part is 

 new, and the work does not suffer from the manifold- 

 ness of the relations in which Humanism is regarded. 

 Certainly, if to be incisive is to be convincing, Mr. 

 Schiller has proved his case. 



(2) This volume, containing the Dunkin lectures 

 on sociology, delivered last year at Manchester Col- 

 lege, O.xford, runs on very different lines from Mr. 

 Schiller's. No doubt there is the same effort to show 

 how much of Humanism lies implicit in a large range 

 of philosophic works; but as it does not seek to prove 

 a thesis, this book is not written with the same verve 

 and passion. We have sober grey in grey, and never 

 an attempt to bring out violent contrasts. Naturally, 

 Mr. Schiller's Humanism is for Mr. Mackenzie only 

 Pragmatism, but in the few paragraphs devoted to 

 it it receives only reasonable criticism. 



Prof. Mackenzie's own Humanism is described as 

 " a point of view from which human life is regarded 

 as an independent centre of interest " — as contrasted 

 with a Naturalism and Supernaturalism which seek 

 the explanation of human life either in the forces 

 around man or in some powers distinct from man 

 and those forces. 



In the light of that description the influence of 

 Humanism in philosophy, politics, economics, educa- 

 tion, and religion is studied, and the two closing chap- 

 ters examine the limitations and implications of 

 Humanism. Prof. Mackenzie fears that the style of 

 treatment may be regarded as sketchy ; sketchy it is, 

 and the title of the volume perhaps induces expect- 

 ations that are not realised; but undeniably the work 

 has substantial merits. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Euclid's Parallel Pustulate: its Nature, Validity, and 

 Place in Geometrical Systems. By Dr. J. W. 

 Withers. Pp. x-l-iq2. "(Chicago: Open Court 

 Publishing Co. ; London : Kegan Paul and Co., 

 Ltd., 1905.) Price 4s. 6d. net. 

 This is a philosophical thesis by a writer who is really 

 familiar with the subject of non-Euclidean geometry, 

 and as such it is well worth reading. The first three 

 chapters are historical ; the remaining three deal with 

 the psychological and metaphysical aspects of the 

 problem; finally, there is a bibliography of fifteen 

 pages. Mr. W'ithers's critique, on the whole, is quite 

 sound, although there are a few passages either vague 

 or disputable. For instance (pp. 80-1) : " Had man's 

 spatial experience been confined to vision alone, the 

 struggle between Euclid and Lobatchewsky could 

 never have been, since for vision alone there are_ no 

 such things as parallel lines." This is not convinc- 

 ing, and the sentence that follows does not add 

 to the force of the argument. As a matter of fact, 

 lines that we see apparently change their inclination 

 as we change our point of view, and diverging lines 

 looked at in a proper direction might very well arouse 

 the concept of parallel lines. And however freely we 

 admit the part taken by sensation in the develop- 

 ment of geometrical ideas, we are compelled in the 

 last resort to see that the science of geometry is the 



