respects, on the question which ethical principle should be taken as essential. To this it may be added that this central principle, if even partially realised, should from its own nature keep living and growing the force for social reconstruction. A forecast as to probable social reforms based on this view of agreement on the central principle would suggest that some antagonisms of social reformers would be found to be not ultimate. The Individualist, recognising that there must be persons who are individuals in every sense of the term in the society which is to be a "Kingdom of Ends," will, without fear of bureaucracy, admit the action of the state where necessary to remove the conditions hostile to individual development, whilst the Socialist will recognise at what point the means he advocates defeat the end at which he really aims. As regards the projects of supernational combinations or leagues of states discussed in the second and third papers as brought into the sphere of practical politics by the horror of war which will follow the war, it appears that the agreements on which these unions would rest, even though "the organised rule of law" be substituted for "the moods of statesmen or citizens," would shrivel up like similar agreements of more restricted scope, unless held together by bonds that will constantly grow in vitality and strength. The rule of law has only the strength given to it by the wills which are its source, and any organised force behind it is also dependent on will. If we put our trust in such agreements alone we appear to be accepting in the international sphere the assumption of Hobbes in the political, that the right of the individual to use his hand against the hand of every other individual, if given up to a common sovereign from motives of fear or self-interest, will not be reclaimed when motives on the same plane are at work, and opportunity arises. Out of this fatal cycle, men escape in the development of society when their eyes are opened and their wills adjusted to the fact that they are "by nature" social beings. For an analogous discovery in the international sphere we can prepare by developing, to a far deeper intensity, the force which makes for unity within every existing society. This is not to suggest any postponement of the efforts to form inter-state organizations. It is merely to affirm the view that, in whatever way they are originally motived, social reconstruction will be the source of their lasting success. In the most recent public utterance of "the great philosopher statesman," referred to in the second paper (to which in this later contribution there is an opportunity of alluding), it is said that "a steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by the partnership of democratic nations. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to the common end." Democracy has not always been the guardian of peace. But the saying seems true if it be granted that freedom of spirit must also be realised in a deeper sense than it has been in the past in the various nations which are to form the concert. Conversely international peace will not contribute to social peace unless international unity is itself the result of social ideals. XI. THE BASIS OF CRITICAL REALISM. By G. DAWES HICKS. § 1. Introduction.—The Term “Critical Realism." § 4. The Two-Fold Character of the Act of Perceiving. § 6. Minds and Things. § 7. Conclusion. § 1. Introduction.-The Term "Critical Realism." THE term "realism" has been sufficiently prominent of late in philosophical discussion. It has attached itself, with or without their concurrence, to the line of thought that is being developed by Mr. Russell and Dr. Moore; it has been deliberately adopted by Professor Alexander for the strikingly original metaphysical theory he has been engaged for some years in working out and expounding; and the "neo-realism" of the six American essayists has been eliciting no less attention on this than on the other side of the Atlantic. I have no fondness for the title. Like all such labels in philosophy it seems to me usually more misleading than helpful; but I make use of it on the present occasion as perhaps, on the whole, best adapted to indicate the tendency of the set of considerations I am proposing to bring forward. Let me beg it to be understood, however, that, within the limits of a single paper, I can do little else than sketch the outlines of a point of view that has not been reached in a day, and must rest content often with the mere statement of positions which, under other circumstances, would properly call for justification. If I succeed in making clear that a coherent account of experience may be sought along the track I shall follow, it will be as much as I can hope to do. Realism, as Professor Perry has defined it, stands for the principle that "things may be, and are, directly experienced without owing either their being or their nature to that circumstance."* Provided no special interpretation be put on the phrase "directly experienced," I am prepared to accept this statement as a general description of the standpoint I wish to maintain; or, more accurately, of the result towards which various paths of reflexion seem to me to lead. At the outset, it is worth while to remind ourselves that realism, in the sense indicated, is no novelty or new discovery in philosophical speculation. Long prior to the writings of any of the authors to whom I have alluded, there had been coming to light a steadily increasing recognition of the inadequacy of the central thought of the earlier idealist systems and of the impasse in front of which they appeared to be at a stand. am not now referring to Thomas Reid and his followers. The so-called "natural realism" of the Scotch Common-sense School, with its reiterated appeals to the instinctive belief of the unsophisticated intelligence, disposed of the "way of ideas" in far too rough-and-ready a fashion to satisfy the demands of exact and methodical inquiry, although it is not to be forgotten that the acute and critical mind of Henry Sidgwick found in the philosophical work of Reid many features that seemed to him of enduring interest. I am thinking rather of a number of patient investigators who, whilst imbued with the lesson of Kant and Hegel, came to see that the place assigned to Nature in the idealist systems of the nineteenth century was unsatisfactory and impossible. The discrepancy between the large conceptions of the idealist systems and the important results which the special sciences were accumulating in such abundance came perhaps first into due prominence through the labours of Lotze. It has been said of Lotze's philosophical views as a whole that his is after all only a half * Present Philosophical Tendencies, p. 315. philosophy, and the estimate is doubtless a true estimate. But Lotze combined in singular measure the speculative instinct of the constructive metaphysician with the cautious attitude of the trained scientific inquirer, and the numerous detailed researches undertaken by him prepared the way for a more radical change in the interpretation of experience than he himself discerned. If, in the long run, he offered a final reading of the universe in terms of ethical idealism, yet "it is," he was convinced, "only inquiries conducted in the spirit of realism that will satisfy the wishes of idealism." The estimate I have just quoted of Lotze's philosophy as a whole is that of Professor Adamson, and Adamson may not unfairly be said to have remodelled and carried on much of Lotze's work. Like Lotze, he brought to the treatment of philosophical problems a profound and intimate acquaintance with the entire history of speculation and a critical faculty of rare power and depth. He had thought through every detail of the Kantian and post-Kantian systems, and, although he never had complete confidence in the Hegelian metaphysic, he certainly approached the questions of philosophy with more than "the companionable feeling," which he acknowledged to be his later, towards idealism. "For him," as Professor Sorley puts it, "the Copernican change consisted in displacing selfconsciousness from the position it occupies in every system of idealism." Nothing in its way is more significant in the history of recent thought than the set of reasons that gradually led to that change. Adamson came to see, for example, that it was only in so far as the distinction marked by space and its absence was recognised by consciousness that a subject, in any intelligible sense of the word, was possible at all; that it was, therefore, reversing the real order of development to regard space as in any way a condition imposed by the subject on the contents of his experience. He came to see that, since the time-relation applied not merely to the contents supposed to be arranged by the subject but to the successive |