German Philosophy And Politics

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS BY JOHN DEWEY Professor of Philosophy in Colombia University WSW YOEZ HENHY HOLT AND COMPANY CoFTBiaHT, 1915, BY H3BNRY HOLT AND COMPANY PREFACE The will of John Calvin McNair established a Foundation at the University of North Carolina upon which public lectures are to be given from time to time to the members of the University. This book contains three lectures which were given in February of this year upon this Foundation. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many courtesies enjoyed during my brief stay at Chapel Hill, the seat of the University. J. D. Columbia University, New York City, April, 1915. CONTENTS A6B I GERMAN PHILOSOPHY THETwoWoELDS 3 II GEBMAH MORAL AKD POLITICAL PHI LOSOPHY 47 III THE GEBMAFIC PHILOSOPHY OP HISTOEY 91 INDEX ..... 133 GERMAN PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS GERMAN PHILOSOPHY THE TWO WORLDS THE nature of the Influence of genera Ideas upon practical affairs Is a troubled question. Mind dislikes to find itself a pilgrim In an alien world. A discovery that the belief in the influ ence of thought upon, action Is an illusion would leave men profoundly saddened with themselves and with the world. Were It not that the doctrine forbids any discovery Influencing aff airs since the discovery would be an Idea we should say that the discovery of the wholly ex post facto and idle character of ideas would profoundly Influence sub sequent affairs. The strange thing Is that when men had least control over nature and their own affairs, they were most sure of the efficacy of thought. The doctrine that nature does nothing in vain, that It Is directed by purpose, was not engrafted by scholasticism upon science It formu lates an instinctive tendency. Andif the doctrine a 4 THE TWO WORLDS be fallacious, Its pathos has a noble quality. It testifies to the longing of human thought for a world of its own texture. Yet just in the degree In which men, by means of inventions and political arrangements, have found ways of making their thoughts effective, they have come to question whether any thinking Is efficacious. Our notions in physical science tend to reduce mind to a bare spectator of a machine-like nature grinding its unrelenting way. The vogue of evolutionary ideas has led many to regard intelligence as a deposit from history, not as a force In Its making. We look backward rather than forward and when we look forward we seem to see but a further unrolling of a panorama long ago rolled up on a cosmic reel. Even Bergson, who, to a casual reader, ap pears to reveal vast unexplored vistas of genuinely novel possibilities, turns out, upon careful study, to regard intellect everything which in the past has gone by the name of observation and reflec tion as but an evolutionary deposit whose im portance is confined to the conservation of a life already achieved, and bids us trust to instinct, or something akin to instinct, for the future as If there were hope and consolation in bidding us trust