Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... PART III PRELIMINARY WE do not know, in detail, what kind of world we would desire to live in. Wisdom to devise such a world we slowly acquire, and in infinite time may possess; meantime we tend to assume that our perfectly enlightened wish would correspond not too remotely with the general description of the world as we find it -- at least that it would more nearly approach these curious and mysterious arrangements than we now fathom. Further, there are certain major features of our world whose value, or part of whose value, can be made out. In adorning the figure of God the wishes of men have certainly had large play: it is not unimportant to enquire how much of this wish and will is permanently valid, how much is the passing work of a fancy too little self-conscious. We have been told in these latter days that a pluralistic world would be better than a world of One Being; that a world without an Absolute would be wholly as good as with one; and we have often been assured that God is no certain addition to human happiness, most lately by Mr. McTaggart. Emboldened by these representations we may make a few tentative excursions into this pleasant field of world-willing before girding ourselves to the more strenuous labor of truth-finding -- not forgetting, however, that the question what we need is also a question having a true answer. CHAPTER Xni THE NEED OF UNITY: MONISM AS BEARING ON OPTIMISM. MONISM may be optimistic or pessimistic, as we conceive the One Being to be good, bad, or indifferent. Schopenhauer's One was blind, and its products fit only to be swallowed up again. But monism at least permits optimism, since a world that is One has a chance of being safe. It may even be too safe. To the minds of pluralistic writers monism...