INTRODUCTORY 



illustrate and discuss this process of change not 

 only as described in the synthetic philosophy, but 

 more especially as known in the light of the enor- 

 mous mass of knowledge gained in the forty-four 

 years since Spencer wrote the formula of evolution. 

 Further and finally, we must attempt to discuss 

 the highest implications of the philosophy of evo- 

 lution, especially in its relation to such great ideas 

 as are expressed in the words pantheism and pan- 

 entheism. 



My object is not to reduce the many and ponder- 

 ous volumes of the synthetic philosophy to brief 

 and popular form, for that task has already been 

 admirably performed by Professor Hudson. 1 Rather 

 do I write in the attempt to justify my conviction 

 that the philosophy of universal and ordered 

 change is far more easily demonstrable to-day 

 than ever before; and I believe that these words 

 would be true were they read a century hence. 

 Since First Principles was written, new sciences 

 such as the comparative study of religions, com- 

 parative mythology, comparative ethics, com- 

 parative psychology, astro-physics, and physical 

 chemistry have come into being, each of which 

 deals, in effect, with evolution in one or another 

 sphere. My purpose, then, is to demonstrate the 

 truth of the philosophy of evolution or change 

 in the light of human knowledge in the first lus- 

 trum of the twentieth century. 



1 In his Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. 

 7 



