The philosophy of Whitehead combines aspects of the metaphysics of Hegel with the discoveries of the scientific ‘Theory of Relativity’. He is the most difficult of Western philosophers, both in expression and thought, for the ways of his argument are a novelty of his own. Like Hegel, he expounds the interpenetration of all things, and teaches the relativity of the universe as the totality of mutually determining configurations of force. For Whitehead, there are no things, localised bodies or objects which are really cut off from one another. Every object of the world is a collocation of forces, a vortex of energy, a point of concentrated motion, which enters into other such centres of energy to cause an ‘ingressive evolution’ of themselves perpetually. His criticism of the belief in ‘simple location’ takes us to the larger circumstance of the universe and makes us citizens of creation as a whole. The barriers or personality, society and nationality are crossed in the ocean of becoming which life is in reality. We begin to inherit the wealth of the cosmos as ‘actual occasions’ which bear relations to the farthest regions of existence. Here Whitehead shakes hands with Hegel and establishes on earth a kingdom of universal abundance and prosperity. What lies between things is not empty space but a living process which is everywhere the same. We can touch the things of the antipodes without moving a bit physically, for we are there already as the waters of the ocean are everywhere in it. Whitehead’s concept of causation, his understanding of the notion of inference, and his new interpretation of the relation between mind and matter are a high watermark in the history of philosophy. His critical estimate of the views of modern science marks him out not only as a great scientist but also as a great philosopher. We have here to refer back to our appreciation of his analysis presented earlier.

Whitehead, by his theory of ‘actual occasions’ or ‘drops of experience’ takes us beyond ourselves to the boundaries of the vast universe. We are made to outgrow ourselves in experience and reach up to others living in the other parts of the process of becoming. His concept of ‘eternal objects’, a quaint phrase invented by him, is a memory of the Ideas of Plato and sounds like the Vedanta doctrine of subtle bodies (Linga-sarira) which inform the physical patterns as visible bodies. His pregnant expressions, like ‘relevance’ and ‘prehension’ convey a meaning suggestive of deep philosophic insight. Whitehead, without stating it openly, hints at the existence of the Absolute by his view that matter and life are fundamentally one, and life is experience.

While Kant, Hegel and Whitehead may be regarded as the most mature thinkers of the West, the other leaders of thought cannot be set aside as entirely irrelevant. Schopenhauer highlights that seamy side of life which the aristocratic philosophy of Hegel ignores as pointless. The fact of suffering and sorrow has nowhere found such powerful expression and pleading as in Schopenhauer. While the system of Hegel reached the well-to-do in life, the voice of Schopenhauer was eagerly heard by the poorer people. If Hegel is the exponent of an all-round perfection, Schopenhauer is the advocate of all-round suffering and pain. Schopenhauer touched a vital issue in human life and became famous as the philosopher of pity. His monumental work, ‘World as Will and Idea’ is no less appealing than either the Critique of Kant or the Logic of Hegel. They present different aspects of truth, which require patient hearing. The transiency of life, the universality of suffering and the need for getting rid of it are important teachings of idealist thinkers and spiritual mystics both in the East and the West.

Nietzsche’s craving for power is not merely a megalomania but a light thrown on one aspect of human life. It is not necessary that everyone should be a philosopher, but it is necessary that every event of life should find an explanation in a satisfactory philosophy of life. The desire for food, sex and power expresses a basic instinct. Philosophy has not only to appreciate its true position but explain it with reference to the goal of life. The ego of man searches for power and seeks to dominate over others. This is a phase in the development of our individualities. Our worth would lie in detecting its proper context and transmuting it in a more inclusive understanding. The pragmatism of James, again, is true to facts of empirical life and is a science of psychology. Life in the world demands a recognition of its values and does not want them always to be transcended. We have to call a spade a spade. James appeals to the practical sense of the human mind and would not tolerate any violation of its principles. Every prophet had to confine himself to the needs of his times, since speaking too much would not fulfil these needs. We have to take every teacher in the context of his place, time and circumstance and then study him with dispassion. To wrest him of these factors and judge him from the standpoint of our present-day developments would be doing injustice to him and disfiguring truth at a particular level. James came as a remedy for overstatements and armchair philosophies which did not take empirical life into consideration. He emphasised utility of values and encouraged practical enterprise as against mere theorising which does not help one in life.

Bergson, like Schopenhauer and James, is not only an adept in expression and a master of the literary art, but an able thinker of all times. His theory of biological evolution explains the facts of growth in the living organisms and makes out that all life is such evolution. It is difficult to present in a short compass his insight into this side of the truth of the universe, a fact which presses itself forward into our presence every moment of our lives. His great contribution to the world of thought is the forceful emphasis that he laid on the need for intuition and the impossibility to grasp reality through the intellect. The defects of the rational process and the comprehensiveness of intuition do not find a greater protagonist in the West than Bergson. When philosophers through centuries relied on the powers of reason in knowing truth, Bergson turned the tables round and stressed the place of intuition as the only way to the knowledge of truth. The reasoning process tries to connect disjointed elements of thought and reality, while intuition takes reality as a whole. He feels that even instinct is nearer to fact than intellect, for instinct is free from the vanities and artificialities of the intellect. Bergson would, perhaps, say that instinct illumined fully becomes intuition. While the intellect argues out reality, instinct feels it, though imperfectly. Though the faculty of intuition is not adequately defined or understood by Bergson, he took a definite step in that direction, which proved to be a monumental phase in Western thought.

Bergson’s analysis of morality and religion is of great value. He regards religion as a defensive reaction of nature against the selfishness of the intellect. The egoism and diffidence of the intellect are counteracted in religion. The fear of death entertained by the intellect is removed by religion which holds out the fact of immortality and future life. When the intellect feels powerless and depressed, religion enthuses it with the concept of the all-powerful God. The instinct of self-preservation gets ennobled and channelised rightly by the belief in the existence and work of God, as thereby life is redeemed from its characteristic selfishness. The higher religion is that of the saint who identifies himself with Reality. The saint loves all humanity as this love is included in the love of Reality. Morality is of two kinds: self-directed and outwardly directed. While the morality of the common man is a result of social restraint and compulsions of various kinds from outside, the morality of the saint is inwardly directed by the consciousness of Reality. This latter is a spontaneous expression of conformity to the essential fact of life.

Condensation of thought is likely to take away much of the value of the original. The importance of the work, Space, Time and Deity, in which Alexander expresses his arguments cannot be fully brought out in a review. Though there is much in him which may not appeal to the religious mind, there is also, side by side, much that can only be the thought of a master-mind. The scientific value of his study of space-time is great. If Bergson is the philosopher of biology, Whitehead and Alexander are the philosophers of physics. The value of Alexander’s contributions is not nullified by the defects of his system from the point of view of religion and spirituality. Like Schopenhauer and James, Bergson and Whitehead, Alexander presents a picture of reality, which is not false, though not complete. His points of view are deep with suggestiveness.

Green is a pioneer in the development of Hegelian thought in the direction of a sublime completeness. His dissection of the knowledge-process paved the way to the fulfilment of the system in Bradley. the study of the relations of the finite and the infinite elaborately worked out by Caird and Bosanquet is rich both in depth and vastness. While in Green is evident a fine religious spirit coupled with philosophical enquiry, Bradley’s thesis is sharp with metaphysical acumen. Bradley comes nearest to the Vedanta, and Western idealism finds its best expression in him. A student of the Vedanta in its higher form is bound to be benefited by a study of these stalwarts of the West, who will supply him with the equipment of subtlety of reasoning, an irresistible logic of argumentation, and a confidence in one’s methods, which is so indispensable to any genuine seeker of Truth.

Though the Western philosophers do not add to the wisdom of the Vedanta, they help in fortifying it with a powerful weapon against onslaughts from ill-informed sources. The logic of the West would be a good companion to the knowledge of the East. We need not be too eager to cherish either a fanatical adherence to what is ours or a contempt for what is alien. Knowledge is not the property of any community, and it has no national barriers. It succeeds when it is honest enough to accept what is of worth and substance, wherever it be found. India has gained much in the art of political administration and social uplift by its contact with Western culture, which, again, is inclined to gather some superb treasure of universal interest in the ancient culture of India. The East and the West are seeking a common purpose, and it is not true that the ‘twain shall never meet’. The sense of spiritual values has to rise in all humanity.