rguments which are accepted
as convincing at one time have no effect at another (sec. 227, n. 4).
For centuries western Europe accepted the argument for the necessity of
torture in the administration of justice as convincing. At different
periods the satisfaction in allegory as a valid method of interpretation
has been manifested and the taste for allegory in the arts has appeared.
Philosophy goes through a cycle of forms by fashion. Even mathematics
and science do the same, both as to method and as to concepts. That is
why "methodology" is eternal. Mediaeval "realism" ruled all thought for
centuries, and its dominion is yet by no means broken. It prevails in
political philosophy now. Nominalism is the philosophy of modern
thought. Scholasticism held all the mental outfit of the learned. Thomas
Aquinas summed up all that man knows or needs to know. A modern man
finds it hard to hold his own attention throughout a page of it, even
for historical purposes. "Phlogiston" and "vortices" had their day and
are forgotten. Eighteenth-century deism and nineteenth-century
rationalism interest nobody any more. Eighteenth-century economists
argued in favor of stimulating population in order to make wages low,
and thereby win in international competition. They never had a
compunction or a doubt about this argument. No wonder it has been
asserted that all truth, except that which is mathematically
demonstrable, is only a function of the age. When the earth is
underpopulated and there is an economic demand for men, democracy is
inevitable. That state of things cannot be permanent. Therefore
democracy cannot last. It contains no absolute and "eternal" truth.
While it lasts a certain set of political notions and devices are in
fashion. Certain moral standards go with them. Evolution is now accepted
as a final fact in regard to organic phenomena. A philosophy of nature
is derived from it. Is it only a fashion,--a phase of thought? For to
all but a very few such a philosophy has no guarantee except that it is
current. All accept it because all accept it, and for no other reason.
Narrower philosophies become the fashion in classes, coteries, and
cliques. They are really affectations of something which wins prestige
and comes to be a badge of culture or other superiority. A few are
distinguished because they know Greek, or because they are
"freethinkers," or because they are ritualists, or because they profess
a certain cultus in art, or beca