That Way After Him Will Get Nearer Than Himself to the Light, and May Perhaps Be Helped to Do So by His Own Words and Deeds

588 CRITICAL NOTICES : that way after him will get nearer than himself to the light, and may perhaps be helped to do so by his own words and deeds. This may seem a tamer method of progress than the taking of erratic leaps in the dark, but is it not written in the sayings of the wise, Claudus in via antecedit cursorem extra viam ? A. E. TAYLOR National Idealism and a State Church : a Constructive Essay vn Religion. By STANTON COIT, Ph.D. London : Williams and Norgate, 1907. Pp. ix, 386. National Idealism and the Book of Common Prayer : an Essay in Downloaded from Re-interpretation and Revision By STANTON COIT, Ph.D. London: Williams and Norgate, 1908. Pp. xxv, 467. IT is commonly stated (for instance, by Prof. Watson in his recent important work) that religion includes a creed, a ritual, and a life. Philosophical writers, naturally enough, have usually given http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/ their attention mainly to the question of creed, placing life next in importance, and giving very little prominence to the subject of ritual. Dr. Coit has on the whole reversed this order. Ritual stands with him in the forefront, and is considered primarily in its bearing on life, while the discussion of creed, though by no means absent, is relegated to the background. In a philosophical journal, however, it seems best to observe the usual order. Accordingly, I in- tend, in this review, to give some account, first of all, of Dr. Coit's creed, then of his general view of.life, and only after that to notice briefly what he has to say about ritual. In other words, it is bis at Carleton University on July 12, 2015 metaphysical and ethical presuppositions that must claim our chief attention, rather than his application of these to the practical or- ganisation of a church. A laige part of the significance of these books lies of course in the fact that they are a declaration of faith by the recognised leader of the ' ethical movement' in this country; and they are specially important as an indication of the way in which that movement may be connected with the general development of religious life and thought in our time. They bring out its connexion, not only with the Eeligion of Humanity and with Agnosticism, with which it is more particularly apt to be associated, but also with some of the more recent lines of growth within the Catholic Church, the Church of England, and the various dissenting bodies; and, in a more negative way, with Theosophy and Spiritualism. They show, in particular, its close relation to the teaching of Seeley and Matthew Arnold, to the ' Modernists,' to the Broad Churoh movement, and to what is commonly described as the ' New Theology'. It should be borne in mind, however, that the books are iu no sense a mani- festo of the ethical societies. Their leading tenets have been hotly assailed by some of those most intimately associated with the work of these societies—especially by Mrs. Gildland Husband in a critical STANTON COiT, National Idealism. 589 notioe published in the Ethical World. They must, therefore, be accepted only as an expression of Dr. Coit's own view of the essential nature of ethical religion. The metaphysical presuppositions of Dr. Coit's doctrine are kept so much in the background that it is not altogether easy to bring them clearly into view. It seems doubtful, indeed, whether he has ever quite definitely formulated them to himself. He characterises his own position, somewhat vaguely, as that of ' humanistic idealism '; but there are points at which one cannot but feel a certain suspicion that humanistic idealism, as he understands it, is not very widely removed from naturalistic materialism. He says in one Downloaded from passage (State Church, p. 161): ' Atomism, materialism and mechanism, although never for an instant to be denied in the do- main of physics and chemistry, are an utter irrelevance in a scheme for the moral redemption of mankind. Morals treat of matters wholly disparate.' If this means merely that atomism, materialism and mechanism are good working hypotheses in physics and chem- http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/ istry, no objection need be raised to it—though the work of some recent physicists would seem to show that, even for their purposes, these conceptions are in need of some revision. But the statement quoted might be held to carry us somewhat farther. On the whole, however, Dr. Coit's view evidently is that physics and chemistry do not deal with ultimate reality ; and that this must be interpreted as mental. ' The universe,' he states, ' does not exist except as it is perceived '; and ' the forms and categories which are the framework of the perceived universe are given to it by the mind itself' (Common Prayer, p. 171). He further suggests that the human mind is ' essentially ethical will'; and that, consequently, ' Plato's doctrine of the at Carleton University on July 12, 2015 Good as the ultimate idea ' may be accepted as philosophically sound. Such statements might seem to imply that Dr. Coit is an idealist in the sense in which Plato, Hegel, T. H. Green and others were idealists—the sense in which Kant may be regarded as having laid the foundations of modern idealism. But he does not appear to discriminate sufficiently between the doctrine that the universe is what we perceive—or that it is ' experience '—and the doctrine that it is to be interpreted as a system in essential relation to a self-con- scious end. The former is subjective or Berkeleyan idealism, whereas the latter is the kind of idealism to which the followers of Kant have been pointing; and the distinction between them is fun- damental. Now, I judge, from the general tenor of Dr. Coit's language, that, in spite of his occasional references to Plato and Kant, it is idealism of the former type that he has mainly in his mind—idealism gf the type that both Plato and Kant thought they had refuted.1 His attitude is essentially a subjective one; and this seems to me to be of the utmost importance, as determining the view that he is led to take both of religion and of life. His point 1 Plato in the Thtatttiu and Purmttudt*, Kant in the Cntvpie of Part Reason (' Refutation of Idealism '). 590 CRITICAL NOTICES: of view in this respeot, as well as in some others, might be profit- ably compared with that of Dr. TtAghrlH.11; but indeed the confusion between the two different types of idealism is too wide-spread among our philosophical writers to be made a legitimate subject of complaint in the case of one who is not professedly metaphysical. I need only add that Dr. Coit's constant use of the term ' Human- ism ' might suggest to some readers a certain affinity with the pragmatists; and he seems, in one passage, at least (Common Prayer, p. 171), to recognise st*qh an affinity. But I believe it to be on the whole a superficial affinity. He uses the term ' Humanism ' in a wider and, I think, a better sense than that which has recently been made popular; and indeed the general attitude of William Downloaded from James is one of those that he most vigorously attacks. (See especially State Church, chap, i.) At the same time, I must confess that it is not altogether clear to me why he does not go a good deal farther with the pragmatists than he does. If the universe is simply a creation of the human http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/ mind, it is hard to see why the human mind should not proceed to transform that creation as it pleases. The really practical oourae would seem to be that suggested by Omar Khayyam. If we have made the universe somewhat badly, why should we not set our- selves at once to ' shatter it to bits, and then Remould it nearer to the heart's desire P' One would like to know what, according to Dr. Coit, is the source of those limitations which cause human life to be always—as he re- at Carleton University on July 12, 2015 cognises that it is—a struggle of good against evil. When we pass from Dr. Coit's metaphysical to his more purely ethioal presuppositions, we tuid a somewhat similar indeterminate- ness ; and in this case it is perhaps even more to be regretted. We know, of course, from some of his other writings, that he is a con- vinced utilitarian ; and there is at least one passage in these books (Common Prayer, p. 66) in which he gives a slight indication of this fact; but it is a passage in which he states that he has ' not resolved the socially expedient into the happiness-producing; be- cause . even if universal happiness be the ultimate goal, there is no practical necessity for exacting a recognition of it'. He con- tents himself, accordingly, with the vaguer statement, that he takes ' as the universal test or standard of right conduct what might be called the advancement of social welfare'. 'I have assumed,' he says, ' that what is best for the social life, what is well ultimately for the nation, is right'. In another passage (Common Prayer, pp. 237-8) this view is explained biologically. ' According to the law of natural selection, it is easy to show that those tribes among whom deeds destructive to the community were applauded and honoured soon became extinct.

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