xviii PREFACE. 



left it to time-existent beings to become 

 of Free Will what they of eternity have 

 been to the All-Spirit; much as a child, 

 unless considered merely a mechan- 

 ical toy, must of free will, grow into 

 the man that his father preconceived 

 and all the time sees in it. But 

 even so we are left between Scylla 

 and Charybdis, for either this evolu- 

 tion has a purpose, which must be 

 reached outside of time — that is, it will 

 come to a standstill; an ending in 

 Nirvana — or else evolution is ever- 

 lasting, without final purpose, and its 

 proper name — delusion. Again the 

 time-bound mind meets in this, as 

 well as in every ethical or metaphysical 

 problem, if it be pushed to its ultimate 

 consequences, the same conflict or irra- 

 tionality that is destined to baffle the 

 space-bound man, whether his micro- 

 scope is restlessly at work to solve the 

 riddle of the divisibility of matter, or 

 his telescope sweeps the heavens in a 

 vain search for the utmost star. This 

 irrationality, that everywhere surrounds 



