It is the author's contention that both the state of valuelessness in modern times, and the crisis in the social sciences demand a restatement of value theory, based on new theoretical, experiential and empirical developments in the various branches of human knowledge concerned with values.

Values are derived from life, from environment, from self, society and culture, and above all from human existence and experience. Cultural, anthropological and sociological studies have now considerably extended our knowledge of value phenomena and value systems, and of the conditions in which these have arisen. But in Dr. Mukerjee's view there is unfortunately a complete neglect of causal analysis, largely because values are regarded as highly subjective, relative and non- measurable.

Dr. Mukerjee aims at a logical, philoso- phical and unified treatment of man's complex values and value experiences that are dis- tinguished at their successive dimensions, orders or stages of human adjustment. He is concerned with both the roots and the flowering of the value system, with the demands of finite human nature and with those deriving from its profound affinities with the infinite. It is from man's total context, human and ultra-human, that he selects and orders his hierarchy of goals and values.

Dr. Radhakamal Mukerjee (1889-1968) was one of the greatest social scientists of India. He was Professor of Economics and Sociology at Lucknow University and later on Vice-Chancellor at the same University. He played an important and constructive role in country's freedom struggle. He was invited to deliver lectures at many Indian universities and also abroad including U.K., Europe, U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. He was a highly original philosopher of history, a penetrating interpreter of civilization and a gifted art theorist. He wrote more than 50 books covering these and other subjects. He held important positions in some national and international bodies. An American reviewer has considered him to have written "some of the most important works of our century".

Both the state of valuelessness of the modern age and the aggravating crisis in the social sciences, due to their stubborn refusal to investigate values and assimilate them into their methods and materials, demand a restatement of value theory, based on new theoretical, experiential and empirical developments in the various branches of human knowledge concerned with values.

Values are derived from life, from environment, from self, society and culture, and, beyond all, from the ideal, transcendent dimension of human existence and experience. The psychological and social sciences dealing with values define them as mere preferences and aversions, as desirable goals, emotions and interests. The humanistic disciplines, on the other hand, define them as functioning imperatives or 'oughts'. There is a sharp cleavage in contemporary Western thought in respect of the role of values in intellectual analysis. Disagreement, if not chaos, is serious as regards the relevance of value considerations and deployment of 'oughts' or normative standards in natural science-oriented social thinking. Meanwhile there is gathered an enormous amount of value facts and experiences. Cultural, anthropological and sociological studies have now considerably extended our knowledge of value phenomena and value-systems, social, religious, political, economic and moral, and of the conditions and contexts in which these have arisen. But there is unfortunately a complete neglect of causal analysis, largely because values are regarded as highly subjective, relative and non- measurable. Neither a unitary value concept nor universal value criteria have, therefore, emerged in value theory that insists on defining and treating values in such manner that these may be quantitatively measured and verified. Strangely are values and valuations in real life made to suit methodological assumptions and rules.

Modern value theory has never escalated into the ideal or transcendent dimension for the purpose of psychological and social inquiries. The unity, wholeness and transcendence of the value system, grounded in both human actualities and human possibilities, are seldom envisaged by the sciences of man, society and culture. Values and the process of valuation and development of the value system are approached in strikingly divergent and piecemeal manner by the various psychological, social and philosophical studies according to their image of man, their conception.

of human nature and destiny. The present study aims at a logical, philosophical and unified treatment of man's complex values and value experiences that are distinguished at their successive dimensions, orders or stages of human adjustment viz. biological, psycho-social and ideal or transcendent. While the immediate source of values is in subjective choices and satisfactions, we have stressed that the latter belong to progressive dimensions that govern the conditions and criteria of valuation as well as the range and depth of the felt qualities of value objects that the totality of life and cosmos provides. Our theory of values, accordingly, does not operate on a reduced biological or psycho-social dimension, defining the ideal, metaphysical or transcendent dimension in terms of the lower dimension, but freely passes from the bio-social to the ideal dimension and vice versa.

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