qualitatively distinct activities, of which the one, that of taste, is the condition of the other and is reconstituted in it, but on the other hand can exist by itself independently. History, however, does not altogether corroborate this view. For it should be possible to trace in the course of history, first of all variations in taste and then corresponding adaptations in æsthetic criticism and theory. There should be periods of creative art and periods of criticism and reputations should be definitely established before criticism comes upon the scene with its explanations. But such hard and fast demarcations and periodic successions do not actually occur. Admittedly there have been constant variations both of taste and theory and admittedly each new phase of art involves some development and clarification of principle. But the interweaving and interlocking of taste and principle is so complex and intricate that it is impossible to say which started which. Moreover criticism is almost universally expected to guide public opinion in matters of taste. Taste, in fact, is not considered to be completely formed and organized until it has become articulate in a critical form. In his essay on Shakespeare Croce states that "criticism of Shakespeare, like every criticism, has followed and expressed the progress and alternations of the philosophy of art, or æsthetic." But it has also represented and constituted the progress and alternations of the imaginative appreciation of Shakespeare. Croce's own essay itself affords an admirable illustration of this, as a reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement pointed out with an unconscious irony. Croce's implied thesis," he stated, "is that we cannot do without philosophy in the experience of art, and he maintains it by showing how philosophy removes obstacles to that experience. There are many who suppose that for sensibility to works of art we need nothing but sensibility, and that confronted with a work of art we must not think, but need only feel. Another and very pertinent illustration is to be found in Croce's essay on Corneille. At the opening he 122 STANDARDS AND PRINCIPLES IN ART. remarks that "if there exists a poet who stands outside the taste and the preoccupations of our day (at least in France) it is Corneille. The greater number of lovers of poetry and art confess without reserve that they cannot endure his tragedies, which have nothing to say to them. The fortune of Corneille has declined more and more with the growth of the fame of Shakespeare, which has been correlative to the formation and growth of modern æsthetic and criticism." The whole burden of Croce's essay, which is an admirable piece of analysis, is that Corneille has a real, though somewhat elusive value and the merit of the essay is that by means of its lucid reasoning it focusses and enhances, if it does not actually awaken our consciousness of this value. Stated briefly my suggestion is that the process imagination-principle or taste-explanation is not a passage from one independent activity to another, but a development which requires from the start the presence of both activities and in which a modification in one means a modification in the other. The imagination, or to use Croce's terminology, the individual is never an entity in itself and does not precede the universal or the consciousness of the individual character of the individual. It is always accompanied by a consciousness of a principle and a purpose, however terse and rudimentary. And this applies not only to the taste of the critic and generally of the public but also to the artist. The latter possesses a few working conceptions, he reduces them to an absolute minimum, he deliberately keeps them practically inarticulate, but they do exist in a conscious form and not merely latent and implied. In his work he emphasizes absolutely to the utmost the imaginative element and on his side the critic emphasizes to the utmost the universal element, the principles involved, the correlation of the work of art with the rest of life; nevertheless in doing so he attains to a clearer consciousness of the actual æsthetic value and significance of the imaginative work itself. Meeting of the Aristotelian Society at 21, Gower Street, W.C. 1, on February 20th, 1922, at 8 P.M. Chairman: VISCOUNT HALDANE. VII.-DISCUSSION: THE IDEALISTIC INTERPRETATION OF EINSTEIN'S THEORY. By H. WILDON CARR, T. P. NUNN, A. N. WHITEHEAD, and DOROTHY WRINCH. (The papers have not been written consecutively as in a Symposium. The thesis stated in the first paper has been submitted to the other writers, who have formulated independently their criticisms of it.) Einstein's theory is a scientific interpretation of experience based upon the principle of relativity. This principle is in complete accord with the neo-idealist doctrine in philosophy, and in complete disaccord with the fundamental standpoint of every form of neo-realism. Explanations. So far as my thesis is concerned, I make no distinction between the special and the generalized theory of relativity. The principle of relativity is not a theory of the nature or origin of the subject-matter of the natural sciences, but a principle by which a scientific reality can be constituted and laws of nature formulated, without any assumptions, hypotheses, or presuppositions, whatever, as to the substance or cause underlying senseexperience. The principle of relativity is therefore in the literal meaning of the terms anti-metaphysical and methodological. Neo-realism I take to be the philosophical standpoint that M knowledge requires us to presuppose existence, and that in some sense a universe exists in space and time, the entities within which are discoverable by minds, which themselves are accorded a place therein on equal terms with the entities they discover. Neo-idealism is the philosophical standpoint that reality in its fundamental and universal meaning is mind or spirit. Mind, in this universal meaning, is not an abstract thing opposed to nature, or an entity with its place among other entities in space and in time, it is concrete experience in which subject-object, mind-nature, spirit-matter, exist in an opposition which is also a necessary relation. Apart from their relation the opposites are meaningless abstractions. Experience does not present us with entities existing independently of their relation, as, for example, men (subject) who see (external relation) the sun (object), but with concrete wholes, as, for example, eye-seeingsun. Experience is analysable but cannot be dissociated into constituent elements. Moreover, experience is essentially activity and process, not passive contemplation. The standpoint of neo-idealism, therefore, is thought thinking, mind as pure act, reality as eternal history. Neo-idealism therefore differs widely from the empirical idealism of Berkeley according to which the objects of the external world exist only as ideas in the perceiving mind. It differs also from the transcendental idealism of Kant according to which mind gives form to the matter presented to it, which matter is therefore only known as phenomenon though existing as noumenon. It comes much nearer to the idealism of the seventeenth century, to Descartes's principle, "I think therefore I am," to Spinoza's infinite modes of God, and especially to Leibniz's system of the monads. Argument. The principle which Einstein follows in physics is based on the recognition that the phenomena which constitute its subjectmatter are presented in the form and only in the form of sense experience. Ultimately and fundamentally the qualities of physical objects are sensations. In this he avows himself the follower of Mach. A science of physics implies an objective world common to individual subjects of experience, and the intercommunication of subjects. To constitute such a science the only safe rule to follow is to deduce everything from empirical facts and to eschew transcendent causal agencies. In this scientific principle of economy Einstein also follows Mach. The application of it leads to the principle of relativity. The classical mechanics laid down as the necessary basis of science the affirmation of an existence independent of sense experience to which the subject of experience referred his sensations. The sensations, and perceptions engendered by them, were then taken to be subjective appearances and science to be truth concerning the reality which in its existence was independent of the appearances by which it was revealed. The principle of relativity completely reverses this method. It accepts what were called the appearances as themselves the reality and as the only reality with which science is concerned. It affirms that to constitute a common object it is not necessary to place the existence of that object outside experience and independent of it, all that is necessary is that one individual should be able to refer to an object in his experience which corresponds point to point with the object in another individual's experience. There cannot be between the two objects a substantial identity, because everyone's experience is his own and not another's; and there is no need to assume a causal identity. All that physics requires is correspondence in the object and intercommunicability in the subject in order to work out uniformities. The principle of relativity therefore rejects in physics the metaphysical principle of materialism which presupposes an objective transcendent cause of experience. It equally rejects in mathematics the metaphysical principle of intellectualism |