plausible and attractive one. Granted that the neutral nations should be allowed imports to the extent of their own consumption, it would seem a simple solution to limit their imports accordingly. There inheres, however, a grave difficulty. It is the destination of each particular shipment with which International Law is concerned. The fact that an amount of meat sufficient to feed a neutral country for a year has passed into it within six months, is no reason why cargoes destined bona fide for neutral consumption should be excluded for the balance of the year. With whatever high hopes a policy of rationing may be begun, they are bound to prove illusory when put to a practical test. The imports of meat into Holland during the month of November, 1915, when surely the scheme of the Netherlands Overseas Trust and of rationing' had had time to operate, will illustrate the contrast between the specious argument and the lamentable fact. Holland normally imports 1,843,520 lbs. of meat and exports 11,874,240 lbs. per month; yet during the month of November, 1915, she has been allowed to receive 17,973,760 lbs. of meat, almost ten times the total of average monthly imports prior to the war." In what possible way does the principle of 'rationing' permit the import of goods which the importing country already possesses in excess of its own needs?

Above all, in considering the whole question of the rights of belligerents and neutrals with respect to seaborne commerce, one must remember that a way out must be found. It cannot be that sea-power is henceforward to be deprived of its rewards. Courageous and straightforward action in evolving new customs and rules to meet new conditions is inevitable. It is a popular comment to-day that International Law is a dead thing. The observer looks upon a struggling world, sees the shattering of convention after convention, and jumps to the apparent conclusion. The truth, however, is directly contrary. If International Law is to be a live thing, then development, which is a law of life, must modify its decrees. Altered conditions of commerce must work out answering modifications of law.

* Belgian needs may possibly be included in these figures, but they cannot account for so enormous an increase. No less than 904,960 lbs. came from Great Britain, to the disadvantage of her own population.

QUARTERLY

REVIEW

No. 447

APRIL, 1916

I. Philosophy and Theism

By Prof. J. A. Smith

II. Some After-War Problems By Lord Parker of Waddington III. Aircraft in the War

IV. The Forests of Finland, and European Timber Supplies

V. The Co-operative Movement in India

By E. P. Stebbing

By R. B. Ewbank, I.C.S.

VI. German Business Methods in France Before the War

By Raphael-Georges Levy

VII. The Boy Scout Movement
VIII. Compulsory Military Service in England

By Ernest Young

By Prof, F. J. C. Hearnshaw

IX. Thoughts on the Parliament of Scotland By A. V. Dicey

XV. The Course of the War (With maps) By Colonel Blood, p.s.c. XVI. The Political Situation

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. 447-APRIL, 1916.

Art. 1.-PHILOSOPHY AND THEISM.

1. Naturalism and Agnosticism. By James Ward. Two vols. Second Edition. Black, 1903.

2. The Realm of Ends, or Pluralism and Theism. By James Ward. Cambridge: University Press, 1911.

3. The Principle of Individuality and Value. By Bernard Bosanquet. Macmillan, 1912.

4. The Value and Destiny of the Individual. By Bernard Bosanquet. Macmillan, 1913.

5. Theism and Humanism. By the Rt Hon. Arthur James Balfour. Hodder and Stoughton, 1915.

A SURVEY of the philosophical literature of Europe during the last twenty-five or even fifty years descries perhaps no stars of the first magnitude. Here as elsewhere it is perilous to anticipate the verdict of posterity yet it is difficult to believe that any one of those who have taught or written during that period will ultimately be ranked as equal with Descartes or Spinoza or Kant or Hegel. It may be that the day of the great systembuilders is for ever over, that even the hope of that great synthesis of human knowledge which philosophy once aspired to realise is extinct, and that the philosophic mind, recognising that to conquer it is necessary to divide, has accepted the condition of that specialisation which has proved so fruitful in the advance of science. The task of co-ordinating and summing up results so won is deferred to a distant and receding future. Lipservice is done to its necessity as the consummation of many convergent enquiries, but we now look almost in vain for thinkers courageous enough to claim that they Vol. 225.-No. 447.

X

themselves possess the clue to the future unification. The majority of workers within the philosophic field regard the fulfilment of the task as Utopian, or reject it as a pseudo-ideal of thought. Much of this feeling is doubtless due to a genuine modesty becoming Epigoni, conscious that they are successors to an age of daring and original speculation, the results of which are far from being even now appropriated and assimilated, and still require testing, verification, correction. But this respect for the past is not perhaps very widespread. Indeed there seems to be prevalent in philosophic writers a spirit not modest but rather contemptuous and negligent of their predecessors, and a claim, resting on some real or supposed change in subsequent experience, to set them aside as antiquated or mistaken.

The impression of this dispersion of philosophic effort must not be exaggerated. It has, indeed, led many into devious paths. The goal towards which these divided paths converge is obscured, forgotten or occasionally despaired of. But the instinct towards unity, which is the soul of philosophy, exercises still a powerful charm upon minds eager in the pursuit of truth; and the deeper if hidden currents of speculative thought still set in the direction of synthesis and system. Individuals and even schools no longer, indeed, expressly aim at a deliberately encyclopædic treatment or profess to expound a complete view or conception of the world. Yet, if there is a weakened faith in the possibility of attaining system, there is, on the other hand, no satisfaction felt in eclecticism, no contented acquiescence in a premature agnosticism. The search for first principles continues, and the old fundamental issues are still raised and canvassed. The perennial problems of philosophy concerning the nature of Man and his environment, of God and the relations of Man to Him, of Immortality, still excite that curiosity and wonder from which philosophy springs, and by recurrence to which it continually regains fresh interest and life.

The fact appears to be that in civilised Europe such interest and concern is more widely spread than ever before. With this widening has come for the time a certain dilution of that interest, and a consequent lowering or weakening of the powers engaged in satisfying it.