INTRODUCTION 



III 



THE LATER DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROBLEMS 

 OF THE "cosmic PHILOSOPHY" 



34. With the publication of the " Cosmic 

 Philosophy " Fiske may be said to enter upon 

 a new period of his career. For some years he 

 was now Assistant Librarian of Harvard Uni- 

 versity. Thereafter, in 1879, began his ac- 

 tivity as historian, — an activity principally de- 

 voted to American history. Yet to the end he 

 retained his interest in the problems of the 

 " Cosmic Philosophy." Within a very short 

 time after the appearance of the book, one 

 finds indications that, with regard to the very 

 issues which we have found him discussing in 

 the later chapters of the work, his views were 

 undergoing further development. We have 

 seen, at the opening of this Introduction, that 

 when Fiske himself looked back, after travers- 

 ing for a considerable distance these new paths 

 of thought, he was rather displeased to find 

 that others interpreted his growth as involving 

 any essential change of attitude. Accordingly, 

 in the before cited preface to his book on " The 

 Idea of God," he was fain to call attention to 

 the fact that in the " Cosmic Philosophy " he 

 cii 



