Theism and Empiricism (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 241 I only express my natural appreciation of your genius when I say that I deeply desire to see the finished product." Yet in an exchange of letters with Pierce in 1905 concerning Royce's proposed "System," Pierce noted that he had had little time to read Royce's letters, then tossed off the following devastating paragraph: "What you say is that you show how to build up an asymmetrical relation out of symmetrical elements exclusively. Symmetry is the equality of certain parts. Asymmetry an inequality among them. So what you say is that inequality can result from equality and nothing else. You cannot be surprised if I say that this is too Hegelian" (p. 490). Royce's hot reply must be read in its entirety. A picture of the personality of Santayana comes out clearly in a letter to William James, dated March 4, 1893. An argument concerning the fate of Philosophy 1 at Harvard had erupted between Palmer, Royce, Dunbar and Santayana. "Santayana looked down upon the bloody arena with the contemplative peace of a Roman spectator (my figures of speech are a little confused, but you will make out the essentials of the scene if you try)" (p. 310). Royce's contempt for the intellectual development of California is well known. Yet his criticisms at points appear surprisingly contemporary. In 1878 he wrote to George Buchanan Cole: "Here in the University I am after all much alone. It is not what it used to be when I was a student. The classmates are scattered, of course; and to be an instructor is to look on old scenes through new glasses. My own students are plastic, sometimes bright, often amusing, but they are no companions. The members of the Faculty are cordial enough; but all old teachers are self-absorbed men, with plans of their own .... " Again, in 1882 to William James: "The Regents, a miscellaneous and comparatively ignorant body, are by fits and starts meddlesome, always stupid, not always friendly, and never competent or anxious to discover the nature of our work or of our ability" (p. 113). By 1902, Royce's opinion of the scholastic quality of the University had improved somewhat. During his visiting summer teaching he wrote to Hugo Miinsterberg: "the University, at all events, is in a wholesome state of progress. Wheeler works like Hercules. Yet education here shows some signs of the approaching deluge of feminism that you predict, and against which Wendell, as our Noah, preaches, and builds his ark" (p. 439). Royce did not mention here the encouragement of this "feminism" by both President Wheeler and his wife, whose home on Scenic Avenue was always open for women students' meetings and who promoted the first organization for women on the Berkeley campus, the Associated Women Students. JEAN G. HARRELL California State College, Hayward Theism and Empiricism. By A. Boyce Gibson. (New York and London: SCM Press, Ltd., 1970. Pp. 280, $8) This book has all the qualities required to become a classic in the philosophy of religion: immense erudition in the entire literature of the subject combined with refreshingly original emphases in the author's interpretation of the past classics in the field; an elegant clarity of exposition and argumentation; and an exquisite tightness yet suppleness in the development of the central thesis. A word now about each of the three main points above: (1) the erudition; (2) the central thesis; and (3) the literary style. First, then, Gibson's superb mastery of past 242 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY classics in the philosophy of religion (right up to the present time), shows forth brilliantly in his fresh examination of the celebrated "proofs" for the existence of God (Chapters V-VI). These arguments have received, in one form or another, treatment by such thinkers as Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, More, Hume, Kant, Butler, Paley and many others indeed, all of whom are examined here with probing insights. Among the more contemporary thinkers he examines Alexander, F. H. Bradley, Braithwaite, Kierkegaard, Marcel, Otto, Tennant and numerous others. With a sure and penetrating probe, he gives the reader a fresh exhibition of both the weaknesses and the strong points in all...