Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 61:244 (Oct 1904)
Article: Notes On British Theology And Philosophy
Author: James Lindsay

BSac 61:244 (Oct 1904) p. 784

Notes On British Theology And Philosophy

James Lindsay

Kilmarnock, Scotland

The first series of Gifford Lectures by the Right Hon. R. B. Haldane, K.C., M.P., has been already reviewed by me in the Bibliotheca Sacra.1 The second series has just appeared,2 and will be read with even greater avidity than the first; for it deals with “Absolute Mind” and “Finite Mind” and is marked by the same brilliant qualities as its predecessor. It will be remembered how ably Mr. Haldane presented his own view of Hegelian idealism, and repudiated those neo-Hegelian expositions which present the Universe in terms of universals or thought-relations; further, how he took the Ultimate Reality to be Mind, within which all experience—possible or actual—was held to fall; also, how he seemed to fail of doing justice by the individual in relation to the. Universal Mind, resolving it into mere phase, aspect, or appearance of the latter. The moral self or personality, I then pointed out, seemed not to receive its due, or to be consistently dealt with at all points. Other and more detailed matters —such as freedom and causality—were not very satisfactorily dealt with. Ends rather than causes furnished his clue to the universe, and were ably handled.

In the volume before us, Mr. Haldane’s finding is that Ultimate Reality can be nothing but Mind—can only be subject rather than substance. Mind, he is always insistent, is not to be viewed as substance. He sets forth to inquire whether God as Mind must be personal, and what must be His relation to the finite forms in which self-consciousness appears, say, as in man. The volume is thus constructive, as its predecessor was critical.

Having supposedly got down to the bed-rock of Ultimate Reality as Mind, he inquires into the nature of mind. The exposition is not very new, but is freshly worded and conceived.

BSac 61:244 (Oct 1904) p. 785

The discussion of the soul (pp. 52-55) cannot be said to be either adequate or illuminating. The influence of Aristotle is very evident, but our author does not make so rich and helpful a use, as could have been made, of the great Stagirite’s principles and suggestions in this connection. In particular also, while Mr. Haldane in some sort brings out the place of the soul—as “body on its ideal side”—in the developing world of evolution, there is a complete failure of justice to its onto-logical grounds. It is not really run back into any transcendent and creative spirit, as immanent ground or spiritual principle of the world-series. Indeed, the soul never seems to us so unreal a t...