Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

THE FAITH OF SIR HENRY JONES.* By Rev. Professor D. Miall Edwards, M.A. IN his posthumous work, A Faith that Enquires," the late Sir Henry Jones left behind him a rich legacy of thought, which will be greatly appreciated by all who are interested in the ultimate problems of philosophy and religion, especially (it is to be hoped) among his own fellow-countrymen. It is in many ways a superb piece of work, whether viewed as a philosophical effort or from the point of view of literary workmanship. There is not only deep and acute thought in it, but soul, conviction, fire. Other Gifford Lectures have been more exhaustive in treatment and exacting in argument, but none have combined more finely intellectual power with loftiness of spirit and grace of style. There is no Gifford lecturer known to me whose philosophical belief is also so profoundly his religious faith, and whose theory of the universe is to such an extent a spiritual conviction, imparting colour and richness and eloquence to the argument. As to the author's lucidity and beauty of style, it reminds one of William James' description of Bergson's style, with its flexibility of verbal resource that follows the thought without a crease or wrinkle, as elastic silk underclothing follows the move- ments of one's body." But our chief concern here must be, not with the man or his style, but with the view of reality which he presents to us. This must be examined on its own merits. It is to be hoped that this book will give a fresh stimulus to philosophical study in Wales. We Welsh people are proud of the man, of his fine career, noble character, brilliant gifts, and do not cease to wonder at the undaunted courage and heroism which enabled him to do his work during the long and terrible sufferings of his last years. But admiration for the man is not enough unless it be the means of quickening genuine interest in the high themes to which he so whole-heartedly devoted himself. And in A Faith that Enquires we have the rich harvest of a life of earnest thought. Needless to say, what we have in this book is a form of Hegelian Idealism. This does not mean that the book is a mere reproduction or summary of the elaborate Hegelian dialectic, or a mere echo of the thoughts of other Hegelian philosophers. It is a fresh and original re-thinking of the whole problem of the universe, of the meaning of life, morality, and reli- gion, and of the nature of the Absolute, but in the spirit and under the intellectual inspiration of Hegel and of the British neo-Hegelians. The author is in no way lured by the latest philosophical fashions or fads of the hour. He has no sympathy whatever with anti-intellectualism, pluralism, or pragmatism, and will have nothing to do with the idea of a finite God," even in the modified and moderate form of it (" the self-limitation of God "), which appears in the writings of James Ward and Hastings Rashdall (whom A Faith that Enquires." The Gifford Lectures de- livered in the University of Glasgow in the years 1920 and 1921. By Sir Henry Jones. Macmillan and Co., 1922. Pp. 361. 18/- net. he never mentions). He seems to me to have certain affinities with neo-realism (a modern school to which he makes no reference), but I do not think this is due to conscious assimilation of any of the views of this school, but it is rather the result of the inner develop- ment of his own idealism in touch with the concrete world of experience. And it goes without saying that he differs fundamentally from neo-realists on many vital issues, and in his whole outlook and method. Everybody knows that there has been for years a strong revolt against Idealism of the Hegelian type in philosophical circles. But in spite of this, Henry Jones stands confidently in the line of classic idealism, and is not perturbed by the currents of thought which flow in the opposite direction. He scarcely seems to realise the strength of these anti-idealistic currents or does not take them seriously. Spiritualistic Ideal- ism." he confidently asserts, "in some one or other of its forms, holds the field" (p. 230), and he says with equal confidence, Idealism is for me the philosophy of the future (p. 145). It is not easy to characterize in a sentence the differ- ence between classical idealism and the more realistic and empirical (I do not say materialistic) philosophies that are now much in vogue. But using a metaphor from politics, one might say that recent thought is more democratic," i.e., insists on taking the imme- diate facts and phenomena of the space-time world as prima facie of equal standing with so-called spiritual facts, while the absolute idealist has a more aristo- cratic view of things, and regards spiritual values as from first to last occupying a higher plane in the hierarchy of being than the ordinary secular things of daily experience, taken (as common sense is apt to take them) at their face value. Henry Jones remained an uncompromising and unrepentant idealist, but scarcely of the high-browed aristocratic type, for, as I have suggested, there was a touch of the realist about him, too. That is, he fully recognized the reality of the natural world and also its value, at least its secondary value as the instrument of spiritual purpose. He insists with reiterated em- phasis on the unity and continuity of the natural and the spiritual, and denies the ultimate truth of the distinction between the sacred and the secular. Hence, to revert to my metaphor, the aristocratic spiritual values-the intrinsically and absolutely good-become democratized by their close association with the common things of life, and, on the other hand, the natural world of the scientist and the realist is sub- limated or elevated to the peerage by its becom- ing the instrument and medium of the spiritual. This is my attempt to sum up briefly and inadequately Henry Jones's doctrine of immanence. He refuses to place the spiritual in a world apart he will not con- sign it to some transcendent world of static entities, leaving the world of the senses a mere secular realm on a lower plane. Spiritual facts are not real except when they are exemplified or realized in the things and events of time. Twice he uses the expression realistic Idealism (pp. 130, 132), and the phrase