ciple of existence is operant in and through and yet beyond the forms. All reality must be traced back to this principle as the “first act,” the origin, the reality in all things. But any man who follows this analysis back to the vision of naked activity begins to know its name, and to fear the Existence which is not vague flux or force but God.
The systems of Professor Weiss can proliferate indefinitely; yet all their intricacy and balance will never make the “modes” begin to move and to be, for he has banished from his thin world of intellect the recognition of the principle which links forms to fact. Or, rather, the world of scientific observation, of phenomena and statistics, long ago banished the realistic philosophies from the modern scene. Weiss, by his very probing of all self-inclosed systems, by his questioning of all formally perfect schemes, states the problem honestly and dramatically. His desperate assertion of four “realities” is a confession of the inadequacy of the simple patterns and programs of philosophy.
Comments