INTRODUCTION. 419 



universal Self (Pampsychosis) and quite sup- 

 planting its former royal herald, Philosophy. 

 Hence resulted the great philosophic subsi- 

 dence, especially in the last half of the nine- 

 teenth century, which subsidence carried down 

 with it a good deal of the old theology. Then 

 began to be felt the need of a new formulation 

 of the Universe in all its three constitutive 

 stages God, World and Man. For the two 

 old formulations in all their various phases 

 were no longer sufficient ; Religion and Philos- 

 ophy, the two ancient world-disciplines of man 

 and the greatest trainers of his spirit, had 

 been partially at least outgrown. Not that 

 they were to be thrown away and wholly elim- 

 inated from the great school of humanity, but 

 they must be supplemented by a third con- 

 struction of thought of the All, different in- 

 deed but co-operant and reconciling, for Re- 

 ligion and Philosophy from the time of old 

 Greece had never been very good friends and 

 needed a mediator. At any rate the aspiration 

 rose in the soul of the age for the new third 

 world-discipline an aspiration indicated by 

 the deep-seated unrest of the best spirits. 



So it happened that Natural Science with 

 its fresh triumph laid claim to being the great 

 new dispensation. Through it the old order 

 had been assailed and partly undermined ; its 

 negative might had indeed been prodigious. 



