Welsh Journals

Hegel's and Jones's view of life, everything is an expression of Absolute Spirit. Every- thing which is real is spirit manifesting itself. So, for Jones, spirituality was not exclusive to religion. Once asked about his unusual views on religion and whether or not they implied that he denied the divinity of Christ, Jones is reported to have answered 'he was not prepared to deny the divinity of any man' (p. 52). As Boucher and Vincent, with a stoic lack of comment, note, this 'catches the whole sense of his position'. The authors intertwine their discussion of Jones's philosophy with a well-informed account of the philosophical climate in which Jones wrote. This helps to situate Jones perfectly, if perhaps detracting a little from his own contribution. A topic which was very much under discussion in Jones's day was the issue of evolution. In its most strictly Darwinian form of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, this represented a challenge to Hegelian orthodoxy. Jones enthusiastically set about defending the Hegelian position. This position Jones had partially to construct since, though there were evolutionary aspects to Hegel's philosophy, a doctrine of evolution was far from being fully devel- oped in Hegel's encyclopaedic system. Generally the line which Jones took was to suggest that the doctrine of evolution in nature was wholly compatible with Hegel's account of the evolution of spirit. Hegel never denied that nature was a hostile realm which in many respects represented the other of thought and spirituality. But it was not an other which had nothing to do with thought and spirituality. Natural scientists performed the vital task of demonstrating the spirituality of nature by showing how its development accorded with natural laws. In the natural law Hegel thought we had proof of the ultimate spirituality of nature. Nature evolved according to the dictates of spirit rather than the blind conflicts of animality and matter. For Jones, as Boucher and Vincent remark, 'evolution involves a unity between nature and spirit. Instead of materi- alizing Spirit, evolution spiritualizes the material world' (p. 86). In my mind both Hegel's and Jones's absolute idealisms call for critical comment. On the whole, though, the authors of this volume simply report the two (almost identical) positions. However, they come into their own in the four major chapters of the book which deal respectively with citizenship, political ideologies, imperialism and the morality of states. These chapters represent an extremely valuable account of Jones's political theory and a commendable introduction to some key issues of political theory for any intending student of the subject. The authors succeed very well in demonstrating the pertinence of Jones's political theory for his time and its quality as Hegelian politi- cal theory for any time. Hegelian political theory, as represented by Jones, was particularly appropriate for the late Victorian period in British life-where it was able to support enlightened state intervention, encourage patriotism and justify political reform-but was particularly inappropriate for the early twentieth century as the mass politics of socialism emerged and European war loomed. Orthodox Hegelians simply did not have the means of coping with the issues raised by the war with Germany and the gradual development of interna- tionalism. They were especially unfortunate that their source of inspiration had at one time been the equivalent of the German state philosopher. Thus, although in his early career Jones as a political theorist was part of a success story, by the end of his career he had to deal with a situation which was almost precisely the opposite.