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INTRODUCTION. 



The object of the Boston Monday Lectures is to present the 

 results of the freshest German, English, and American scholar- 

 ship on the more important and difficult topics concerning the 

 relation of Religion and Science. 



They were begun in the Meionaon in 1875; and the audiences, 

 gathered at noon on Mondays, were of such size as to need to be 

 transferred to Park-street Church in October, 1S76, and thence to 

 Tremont Temple, which was often more than full during the win- 

 ter of 1S76-77, and in that of 1877-78. 



The audiences contained large numbers of ministers, teachers, 

 and other educated men. 



The thirty-five lectures given in 1876-77 were reported in the 

 Boston Daily Advertiser, by Mr. J. E. Bacon, stenographer; and 

 most of them were republished in full in New York and Lon- 

 don. They are contained in the first, second, and third volumes 

 of "Boston Monday Lectures," entitled "Biology," "Transcen- 

 dentalism," and "Orthodoxy." 



The lectures on Biology oppose the materialistic, and not the 

 theistic, theory of evolution. 



The lectures on Transcendentalism and Orthodoxy contain a 

 discussion of the views of Theodore Parker. 



The thirty lectures given in 1877-78 were reported by Mr. Bacon, 

 for the Advertiser, and republished in full in New York and Lon- 

 don. They are contained in the fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes of 

 " Boston Monday Lectures," entitled " Conscience," "Ileredity," 

 and " Marriage." 



In the present volume some of the salient points are: — 



1. An historical study of ancient Greece as illustrating the 

 capacity of the race to produce great men rapidly (Lecture I.). 



2. A defence of Aristotle's definition of life as "the cause of 

 form in organisms," and of the author's definition of life as " the 



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