SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 962 



ophy should have a somewhat exceptional in- 

 terest for men of science. Por it makes use of 

 data drawn from the special sciences more than 

 is the wont of philosophical books; it repre- 

 sents an attempt to introduce something more 

 closely resembling the scientific method and 

 temper into philosophical inquiry; and it is 

 chiefly devoted to the establishment of a con- 

 clusion which, if accepted, would apparently 

 necessitate the relinquishment of certain 

 modes of thought and speech frequently used 

 in the interpretation of the methods and re- 

 sults of scientific observation. In the spirit 

 and procedure of the authors there is much 

 that is both rare and laudable. Real, organ- 

 ized cooperation in philosophizing — the pro- 

 visional segregation of definite questions, and 

 an attempt to reach a collective answer to 

 them by methods which have borne the test of 

 open discussion at close quarters and of repe- 

 tition by other inquirers — this is still a sadly 

 unaccustomed practise among philosophers; 

 there are even those who deem it impossible 

 and of dubious desirability. Whatever else 

 they have done, the six authors of " The New 

 Realism " have in this matter set the philo- 

 sophical world an example which it is to be 

 hoped will be not only praised but imitated. 

 Nor is it only in their cooperation that they 

 have carried over the temper of science into 

 the business of the philosopher. The book for 

 the most part is singularly free from those 

 arriere-pensees which often vitiate, even 

 though they enrich and make more humanly 

 interesting, philosophic reflection. There is 

 almost no trace of the desire to edify, no great 

 solicitude as to the immediate bearing of 

 their results upon " life," no tendency to con- 

 fuse philosophy with either poetry or preach- 

 ing. The writers seem desirous merely of 

 reaching a verifiable conclusion upon a spe- 

 cific issue. With complete intellectual de- 

 tachment they can not, indeed, quite be cred- 

 ited; they have, after all, a parti pris, and at 

 least one of the six writes much in the style 

 and spirit of the special pleader. But since 

 they have a common cause to sustain, the 

 openness with which they acknowledge its 

 initial difficulties and disclose their inability 



to agree upon a common solution of those 

 difficulties, is the more admirable. One's ad- 

 miration would, indeed, have been still 

 greater if this had led to an actual suspension 

 of judgment upon the main issue, as the final 

 result of the cooperative efl^ort — which, as will 

 appear, is the result towards which, at most, 

 the course of the argument would seem to 

 point. But this, perhaps, is more than it would 

 be reasonable to expect. Even as it is the book 

 is an almost unique example of a genuine 

 and persistent attempt at close thinking to- 

 gether — at a literally " dialectic " process — 

 on the part of a considerable number of phi- 

 losophers, of whom none stands in the rela- 

 tion of master to the others. 



The point in the " new realism " which con- 

 stitutes both its novelty and its chief signifi- 

 cance for natural science is, not its realism, 

 but its doctrine about consciousness. For that 

 doctrine, if accepted, entails the abandon- 

 ment of certain conceptions still extensively 

 used by science as well as by common sense. 

 It has been, moreover, the generating prin- 

 ciple of the whole theory, from which all of 

 its principal conclusions and most of its 

 characteristic difliculties have arisen. It is 

 the more important to recall this fact because, 

 while this theory of consciousness clearly 

 underlies much of the reasoning in the vol- 

 ume, it is not altogether definitely and con- 

 nectedly stated here (though it has been so 

 stated in previous writings of some of the 

 group), and it seems at times to be forgotten 

 altogether. 



The doctrine in question is this : that what 

 is commonly called " consciousness " is simply 

 a particular mode of relation; and that it is 

 an " external " relation, i. e., one which does 

 not constitute or in any way alter the terms 

 which at any time happen to enter into that 

 relation. From this doctrine foUow directly 

 the two essential articles in the new realism's 

 account of the nature of the transaction called 

 sense-perception — its affirmation, at once, of 

 the " independence " and of the " immanence " 

 of the object perceived. Given the conception 

 of consciousness as merely an otiose relation 

 among items totally unaffected thereby, and 



