588 
Taking the work as a whole—for space for- 
bids detail—the following remarks and ex- 
cerpts may help to indicate its attitude and 
quality. Dr. Ward adopts the pluralistic po- 
sition in pragmatic fashion. He insists that, 
as a matter of fact, we do start from a plural- 
ity of existing things. On the other hand, he 
nowhere affirms these things to be self-subsist- 
ing and, to this extent, leaves a convenient 
loophole. The most interesting result, from 
the scientific standpoint, is, possibly, the inter- 
pretation of evolution. “It is often applied 
to processes that are diametrically opposed, to 
the differentiation of a unity and to the inte- 
gration of a plurality (97)... . To the sup- 
posed unfolding of an organism regarded as 
completely pre-existing in miniature within 
the germ. . . . The successive unfolding of 
such a system, ... though the ne plus ultra 
of evolution literally understood is then the 
direct negative of evolution as we understand 
it to-day. According to this later theory each 
new organism is not an ‘ educt,’ but a ‘ prod- 
uct,’ to use Kantian phrases: its parts are in 
no sense present in the embryo, but are grad- 
ually organized, one after another, in due 
order, as the term epigenesis implies and as 
Harvey, who first used the term, prophetically 
maintained (98). . . . It is the parts, the 
many, with which the pluralist starts: the 
question, whether or no there is an absolute 
whole prior to—at once the logical and the 
real ground of—all the parts, is for him not 
the first question but the last” (101). 
Plainly, the pluralist is tied to epigenesis: 
“The life-history of the race is original, is a 
long process of gradual acquisition by way of 
trial and error, in short, answers to what we 
have identified with natura naturans; whereas 
the genetic history of the individual is a de- 
rivative, rapid and, so to say, substantially 
invariable process, in a word, is routine or 
natura naturata”’ (207). Yet, even so, plural- 
ism has its own difficulties. An “absolute 
plurality ” “would be merely a sporadic mani- 
fold of realms of ends having a common phys- 
ical basis but devoid of all teleological con- 
tinuity (185). . . . A Supreme Spirit con- 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 902 
fronted and conditioned by free agents cer- 
tainly does not correspond to the notion 
usually entertained of the Deity. Such a 
“finite God’ many would disown as a mani- 
fest contradiction in terms; yet beyond this it 
does not seem possible for the pluralist to go” 
(194). Nevertheless, pluralists would deny 
that evolution requires a transcendent Prime 
Mover distinct from the Many: for the Many 
they hold are all prime movers, and so far 
cause sut.... The efficient causation in the 
world then is just this totality of prime 
movers, its final causation their organization 
into a higher unity” (199). That is to say, 
singularism, with its Absolute, is not the sole 
alternative; nor is scepticism the consequent 
recourse; therefore the contradictions as be- 
tween the One and the Many remain to be 
overcome. The lectures on Theism offer the 
solution, or considerations towards it. 
Theism “introduces one essential modifica- 
tion, at any rate, viz., the idea of creation. 
It does not, that is to say, assume merely that 
one transcendent Being exists above and be- 
yond the whole series of the Many, however 
extended; but it assumes further that this one 
Being is related to them in a way in which 
none of them is related to the rest: they do 
not simply coexist along with it, they exist 
somehow in it, and through it” (231). This 
implies the difficulty, admitted to be insuper- 
able (245), of the self-limitation of Deity. 
Hence, turning again to experience, “ between 
the intemporal world of ideas and the tem- 
poral world of phenomena, free agents have 
their place” (306). Accordingly, the ideal 
realm of ends is “the achievement of virtu- 
ous struggle crowned eventually with victory ” 
(874). Consequently, as to immortality and 
faith, “death becomes indeed but a longer 
sleep dividing life from life as sleep divides 
day from day; and as there is progress from 
day to day so too there may be from life to 
life (407). . . . Hence the moral ideal, as it 
leads to faith in God, leads also to the belief 
that the spirit world has other dimensions than 
those of the time and space that encompass 
the world of phenomena. ... Has not God 
been mocked and life called the vanity of 
