FOREWORD 



WE can now attempt to outline a general theory of 

 collective and individual evolution based on all facts 

 at present known, whether of the naturalistic or the 

 psychological order, and on the deductions they involve. 

 We shall also draw certain inferences that are strictly 

 dependent on the facts. 



We shall put aside, systematically, everything which 

 pertains to pure metaphysics: the question of God, of 

 the Infinite, of the Absolute, of beginning and end, and 

 of the essential nature of things. 



We shall consider only what it is permitted to us 

 to know and understand on the destiny of the world and 

 of the individual according to the degree of intuitive 

 and intellectual faculty which evolution has actually 

 attained. 



This is relatively little, but it is much more than 

 the classical naturalistic philosophy teaches. 



It is henceforward possible to understand the 

 mechanism and the general trend of collective and 

 individual evolution; the degree to which individual 

 consciousness is dependent on, or independent of, the 

 material organism; and the ' wherefore * of Life. 



When these notions are clearly established they 

 carry with them a lesson of idealism which is no longer 

 vague, but precise, and is based, not on an act of faith, 

 nor on a supposed * intuition,' but on an estimate of 

 probabilities. 



The preliminary limitation which we have here laid 

 down, is not founded on the old and obsolete distinction 

 between * the knowable and the unknowable,' but only 

 on the verification of the relative incapacity of our 

 actual powers of knowing and understanding. 



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