6 Life and Matter [chap. i. 



informed, they can do nothing but good. 

 They may not, indeed, convey anything 

 particularly new, but they furnish an inter- 

 esting study in scientific history and mental 

 development. So far, however, as they are 

 read by unbalanced and uncultured persons, 

 with no sense of proportion and but little 

 critical faculty, they may do harm, unless 

 accompanied by a suitable qualification or 

 antidote ; especially an antidote against the 

 bigotry of their somewhat hasty and scornful 

 destructive portions. 



To the intelligent artisan or other hard- 

 headed reader who considers that Christian 

 faith is undermined, and the whole religious 

 edifice upset, by the scientific philosophy 

 advocated by Professor Haeckel under the 

 name " Monism," I would say, paraphrasing 

 a sentence of Mr Ruskin's in a preface to 

 Sesame and Lilies : Do not think it likely 

 that you hold in your hands a treatise in 

 which the ultimate and final verity of the 

 universe is at length beautifully proclaimed, 

 and in which pure truth has been sifted 



