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806
Presidential Address
has proved a gain to his new subject to which he has contributed much penetrating and scientific thought, though part of it seems to be still in the making, and a great deal misses the essential problems of Philosophy. I have called Bertrand Russell a neophyte in the temple of Philosophy, but I think I must hasten to correct the metaphor and say that this 'conscientious objector' during the last Great War is an imperialist of Science who is longing to conquer and annex his neighbour's territory. Thus in his latest book he writes: "all traditional philosophers have to be discarded and we have to start afresh with as little a respect as possible for the systems of the past. Our age has penetrated more deeply into the nature of things than any earlier age, and it would be a false modesty to overestimate what can still be learned from the metaphysicians of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”
The logical consequence of this advice would be that we should amalgamate ourselves some day--the sooner the better-with the body which is shortly to hold its next session in this city. But I do not think the situation is quite so hopeless. In my humble opinion, the waves of Science as they have done frequently in the past, so do they now-dash themselves against the rocks of Metaphysics and retire; they do not so much as even cover them as those other waves do the sands on your beautiful Beach.
Recently Science has influenced Philosophy in two mutually contradictory directions while in the carlier years it led to discontent with Idealism, of late
