97 - Philosophy, Religion, and the Coming World Civilization: Essays In Honor Of William Ernest Hocking

Philosophy, Religion, and the Coming World Civilization:
Essays In Honor Of William Ernest Hocking
Edited by Leroy S. Rouner
504 pp. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1966.

William Ernest Hocking lived a long time (1873-1966), long enough to engage in what amounted to three careers and to look back on the in-

98 - Philosophy, Religion, and the Coming World Civilization: Essays In Honor Of William Ernest Hocking

fluence of each. It is fitting that a volume appear, in the year of his death, whose contributions bear witness to the range of that influence.

Hocking's fields of interest included metaphysics, the religions, and world civilization. In editing the volume, Leroy S. Rouner, of the United Theological College, Bangalore, South India, has grouped his material about these three themes. They constitute a logical framework appropriate for the volume, but one is impressed by their chronological appropriateness as well; for while Hocking's concerns for each were lifelong, they do seem to mark successive phases in his public role.

As a professional philosopher Hocking made his definitive contribution to metaphysics in 1912 with The Meaning of God in Human Experience. Shortly thereafter he was called to Harvard, where he worked until retirement in 1943. Before twentieth-century philosophy went on its austere regimen of formal analysis, it was indulging in a rich and lavish diet. For Hocking, Oriental philosophy and the emerging science of psychology were still part of the menu. This fare is represented by the volume's roster of philosophical contributors-Orientalist, existentialist, historian, philosopher of religion. Figures such as Gabriel Marcel and Charles Hartshorne discuss Hocking's metaphysics, Walter T. Stace the problem of evil, and John E. Smith the self. This group of essays is sound and will constitute the principal attractiveness of the volume for those interested in Hocking's philosophical legacy.

Hocking in his late fifties sailed forth on turbulent seas which (using a later figure) threatened to swamp the good ship Oikumene. He chaired the interdenominational Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry, whose 1932 report, Re-Thinking Missions, questioned directly the practical effectiveness of the Protestant mission enterprise and implicitly the theology of uniqueness which was its rationale. Hendrik Kraemer replied at book length, and while the issue of Christian monopoly on truth was by no means new, the "Hocking-Kramer debate" put the question in classic form for a generation. The editor has recognized Hocking's influence through the inclusion of such world-religions spokesmen as Robert Slater and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and has oiled the troubled waters in a particularly apt way by soliciting a paper from Kraemer. Kraemer's and Radhakrishnan's papers actually are reprinted from elsewhere, but they and the others are of good quality nevertheless.

During and after each of the two World Wars, Hocking addressed himself in articles to issues of war and peace, national morale, and international justice. It was especially after the Second World War, in his post-retirement years, that Hocking's role as spokesman on such matters as the Arab-Israeli conflict took on the magnitude of a new career. The

99 - Philosophy, Religion, and the Coming World Civilization: Essays In Honor Of William Ernest Hocking

Coming World Civilization-to borrow the title of his 1956 book-is the theme of the final section, which includes suggestive essays by such contributors as Crane Brinton, Huston Smith, and Charles Malik. An intriguing aspect of this section is the variety of conceptions of east and west, and estimates of contrast and common interest, which the several essayists offer.

Variety, of course, spices life. But too much variety, like too much spice, can be upsetting. With every Festschrift this is the risk: a smattering of articles by a scattering of authors who find themselves together by accident like the guests at a wedding. Here the editor's care and skill shows, and Rouner has done a particularly careful job both in the selection of contributors and in the arrangement of material. His contributors are impressive, in part because the students of a man in his nineties have had ample time to achieve distinction themselves, but also because a coherent and artful whole has been made from their efforts. A continuity of thought and subject among the essays unites them and, one feels, worthily represents the range and in a sense the progress of Hocking's own thought. The reviewer's task, as a result, has been pleasant.

Willard Gurdon Oxtoby
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut