Now, valuation arranges experience in a different manner from natural
science. The attributes of reality, in our world of values, are
Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. And we assert that we have as good reason
to claim objective reality for these Ideas as for anything in the world
revealed to our senses. 'All claims on man's behalf,' says Professor
Pringle-Pattison, 'must be based on the objectivity of the values
revealed in his experience, and brokenly realised there. Man does not
make values any more than he makes reality.' Our contention is that the
world of values, which forms the content of idealistic thought and
aspiration, is the real world; and in this world we find our own
immortality.
But there could be no greater error than to leave the two worlds, or the
two 'judgments,' that of existence and that of value, contrasted with
each other, or treated as unrelated in our experience. A value-judgment
which is not also a judgment of existence is in the air; it is the
baseless fabric of a vision. Existence is itself a value, and an
ingredient in every valuation; that which has no existence has no value.
And, on the other side, it is a delusion to suppose that any science can
dispense with valuation. Even mathematics admits that there is a right
and a wrong way of solving a problem, though by confining itself to
quantitative measurements it can assert no more than a hypothetical
reality for its world. It is quite certain that we can think of no
existing world without valuation.
'The ultimate identity of existence and value is the venture of faith to
which mysticism and speculative idealism are committed.'[93] It is
indeed the presupposition of all philosophy and all religion; without
this faith there can, properly speaking, be no belief in God. But the
difference between naturalism and idealism may, I think, be better
stated otherwise than by emphasising the contrast between existence and
value, which it is impossible for either side to maintain. Naturalism
seeks to interpret the world by investigation of origins; idealism by
investigation of ends. The one finds the explanation of evolution in
that from which it started, the other in that to which it tends. The one
explains the higher by the lower; the other the lower by the higher.
This is a plain issue; either the world shows a teleology or it does
not. If it does, the philosophy based on the inorganic sciences is
wrong. And the attempt to explain the higher by the lower becomes
mischievous or impossible when we pass from one _order_ to another. In
speaking of different 'orders,' we do not commit ourselves to any sudden
breaks or leaps in evolution. The organic may be linked to the
inorganic, soul to the lower forms of life, spirit to soul. But whether
the 'scale of perfection' is a ladder or an inclined plane, new
categories are necessary as we ascend it. And unless we admit an inner
teleology as a determining factor in growth, many facts even in
physiology are hard to explain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account