10 THE WORLD OF LIFE CHAP i 



In the present volume I am endeavouring to arrive at a 

 juster conception of the mystery of the Life- World than that 

 of Professor Haeckel, and by a very different method. I 

 shall endeavour to give a kind of bird's-eye sketch of the 

 great life-drama in many of its broader and less-known 

 phases, showing how they all form parts of the grand system 

 of evolution, through adaptation to continuous changes in 

 the outer world. I shall also endeavour to penetrate into 

 some of the less trodden paths of nature-study, in order to 

 exhibit the many indications that exist of the preparation of 

 the Earth for Man from the remotest eons of geological 

 time. 



