IN TROD UCTOR Y. 3 1 



We are in this nineteenth century only beginning to 

 get free from that dark cloud of materialism which 

 shrouded the latter half of the eighteenth. But the 

 cloud is passing, and we may already, here and there, 

 catch a glimpse of its silver lining. When it has finally 

 vanished, thinking men will once more appreciate what 

 science really means, and look back with even more 

 wonder than contempt at not a few of the so-called 

 "scientific speculations" of our day — as Aristotle 

 despised the materialism his system combated and 

 ultimately for ages subdued. 



The name of Aristotle suggests an answer to yet 

 another prejudice which the candid seeker after truth 

 has now to struggle against, and about which a few 

 preliminary words need saying. We refer to theological 

 prejudice. The popular science of the day is truly 

 *' denominational." The odium antitheologicum has be- 

 come established and endowed, and, as men are ordinarily 

 under the temptation to consider others like themselves, 

 the opponents of a mechanical theory of the universe 

 are accused of working, not in the interest of philosophic 

 truth, but of a creed. We ourselves have had such 

 accusations hurled against us, with others who have 

 been declared to be scientific workers for whom things 

 " ought to be made unpleasant." 



With a view, therefore, to guarding against such a 

 system of *' poisoning the wells," we think it incumbent 

 upon us to make a brief statement concerning this 

 matter. 



No one has more decidedly and uncompromisingly 

 asserted the difference of nature between man and beast 



