Some Books of the Week Tau vast scope and mysterious
outlines of such a theme as The Meaning of Life as shown in the Process of Evolution (Watts and Co., The Forum Series, 7d. and ls.), when proposed as the subject of a popular booklet, have neither intimidated nor defeated Mr. C. E. M. Joad ; who has produced in the sixty pages at his disposal a compact, remarkable, and also exceedingly readable philosophic essay. Mr. Joad, who has a peculiar talent for attacking the abstract in a fresh and concrete way, describes himself as a Vitalist. In the first part of his little treatise he examines and dismisses as inade- quate to the facts the theories of the universe put forward by the Theist, the Materialist and the Idealist. The world (as Stevenson observed some time ago) is full of a number of things : neither Matter alone nor Mind alone can, he feels, be made to account for them. " Why, after all, should the universe contain only one thing ? " What we find is best described, in dualistic terms, as " a stream of life, and a world of static, obstructive matter." The second and longest part of the essay sets forth the development of life from this point of view ; and mainly in terms of the doctrine of Emergence. The more deeply we study it, says Mr. Joad, the more convinced we become that life is, above all, purposive. Its forward push is ever towards a widening and deepening of experience. It is always moving towards novelty, leaving behind its outworn garments. The sterile traditions of to-day are the corpses of yesterday's living discoveries. What, then, is this ultimate purpose ? In the third part of his essay Mr. Joad tries to suggest a reply. Life, he thinks, is moving towards a state in which, emancipated from its concentration on material things, it will be more and more absorbed in the experience of value—of absolute Goodness, Beauty and Truth. That contemplation of Reality to which the mystic has " pre. cariously and intermittently attained " is, found to be the goal of Creation ; and on the summit of Being the paths of the mystic vitalist and idealist meet.
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