The Unitarian Review (Volume 32) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889. Excerpt: ... Vol. XXXII. JULY, 1889. No. 1 IS THERE A PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION? (First Paper.) I have no sympathy with those who complain because philosophy is forever unfinished and is always beginning its work afresh. In the eternal youth of human problems lies the assurance that we are in the great world of the Spirit, whose life only an eternity can fulfil, and whose concerns no human reflection can exhaust. To be sure, this eternal youth of philosophy never develops healthily in any generation of men, unless they look backward upon the history of preceding generations; and no fresh beginning is worth making, unless the ages have fertilized the forest soil where the new saplings are to grow. But the endlessly unfinished task of philosophy is still justified in its very incompleteness by the fact that philosophy itself is, after all, only an effort towards a passionless and yet truthful comprehension of the deepest passions of humanity; namely, of the passion for knowing the things that are in the world, and of the passion for serving the worthiest ideals. These passions, which philosophy analyzes and reflectively criticises, are not dead things, but living interests. They grow with man. Their issues vary endlessly from age to age, amplify and complicate themselves as life expands, An essay read before the Yale Philosophical Club by Professor Josiah Royce, of Harvard University, under the title, " The Fundamental Problem of Bcuent Philosophy." begin afresh where they had once ended, and so furnish an unceasingly altered world, wherein the philosopher has to find his way. He seeks (for so he says) eternal truth; but the truth as he seeks it is human truth, --God's ways seen in the flying mists of men's thoughts. His instantaneous photographs of human passion have, ind...