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completely truth is mirrored in a man, the higher he ranges in the scale
of evolution.
While modern philosophical thought covers a wide range
of speculation and inquiry, and embraces within itself a great
variety of conceptions and interpretations, nevertheless it may
be safely asserted that it is in its essence Monistic. On all sides
we see the disposition to attribute a Oneness to the things
of the universe a tendency toward resolving everything back
to a one fundamental something. Monism is undoubtedly the
prevailing conception of modern philosophical thought. The
disputes still rage fiercely over the question of what that one
something is, but it is the exception for any leading thinker
to question the inherent oneness of things. We have boldly
seized the underlying conceptions of the Vedanta, of the Greek
philosophers, of Spinoza, and others, and now positively assert
in the words of the Hindu thinkers of several thousand years
back: That which is, is One men call it by many names. All,
from the most radical Idealist to the most crass Materialist, join
in the refrain: All is One, at the last.
Professor Pringle-Pattison says of Monism:
Monism is, in strictness, a name applicable to any system of
thought which sees in the universe the manifestation or working of
a single principle. Such a unity may be said to be at once the tacit
pre-supposition and the goal of all philosophic effort, and in so far as
a philosophy fails to harmonize the apparently independent and even
conflicting facts of experience, as aspects or elements within a larger
whole, it must be held to fall short of the necessary ideal of thought.
Dualism, in an ultimate metaphysical reference, is a confession of
the failure of philosophy to achieve its proper task; and this is the
justification of those who consistently use the word as a term of
reproach.
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The Monism of to-day includes such widely separated schools
of thought as those who claim that all is a manifestation of the
one principle of Spirit; those who advocate a Higher Pantheism
in which all is held to be a manifestation of, and in, God; those
who assert that there is but One, and that One is Matter;
and those who, like Haeckel, may be considered as scientific
Monists, and who hold that the One is substance, possessing
the attributes of extension (matter), motion (energy), and
conscious (mind). Thus to-day we witness the strange
spectacle of the newest new, standing armed with the facts of
modern science, biology, psychology, and physics discarding
the subjective philosophies of the intervening period, and
looking directly into the eyes of the oldest old which found
the conception of the One somewhere in that part of its mind
which assures it of the existence of time, space, and causation.
The new is ready to start all over again just where the old
began, but this time basing its advance on scientific research
and reasoning, instead of upon mere subjective speculation
and theorizing, or innate truths.
There is one factor, however, which is especially characteristic
of the age the idea of meliorism. Meliorism is a belief in the
possibility of the improvement of the world by human effort,
generally implying the further belief that such progressive
improvement is a fact and even a law of evolution. Meliorism
is the happy mean between radical optimism and radical

pessimism between the idea that all that is, is good, and that
which holds that all that is, is bad. Sully defines it as: The faith
which affirms not merely our power of lessening evil this
nobody questions but also our ability to increase the amount
of positive good. By recognizing the possibility of happiness
and the ability of each individual to do something to increase
the sum total of human welfare present and future, meliorism
gives us a practical creed sufficient to inspire ardent and
prolonged endeavor. Fraser says: Faith in a gradual abatement
of evil by the method of progressive evolution is now a favorite
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scientific faith; this faith may be regarded as the form which an
unconsciously religious conception of the universe is assuming
in professedly agnostic minds. Carus says of this spirit: The
new world-conception, animated by the spirit of science,
shows itself in the changes that are wrought not only in our
views of the importance of science, but also in practical affairs,
in the nature and administration of justice, in the education
of children, in our judgment concerning social as well as
international affairs, in the way we consider the occurrence of
great disasters, such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, and
in many other things. The spirit of the Middle Ages, with its
penal code of barbaric punishments, its cruelty in pedagogy,
its narrowness in nationalism and religion, retreats step by step,
while truer and broader views that are being more and more
universally recognized, herald the advent of an age of science.
As a straw showing which way the philosophical and
metaphysical wind is blowing in this first decade of the
twentieth century, and as an instance of the recognition of the
situation by the orthodox authorities, I call your attention to
the following quotation from the leading editorial appearing in
The Interior, of Chicago, in its issue of August 26, 1909. Coming
as this does from the editorial pages of this well-known religious
journal, the statement is of remarkable interest to those who
are familiar with the modern trend of thought, and particularly
in its evident tendency toward the old pantheistic conceptions.
The editorial says:
What Prejudices Modern Philosophy Against a Personal God.
Contemporary philosophers generally assume that it has become
impossible in the present age to think of God as a person. Nobody
nowadays is an atheist; everybody insists that he believes in God. But if
he has aspirations to be recognized as of the guild of the philosophers,
he hastens to add that though he believes in God, he does not believe
in a God. He conceives God as impersonal the great cause pervading
the universe.