INTRODUCTION 



favour of a reconciliation of philosophy with at 

 least a rational hope of immortality. This re- 

 conciliation, first somewhat briefly stated as the 

 outcome of a summary of the meaning of evo- 

 lution, in the " Destiny of Man," gradually grew 

 more important to Fiske as the years went on, 

 and was especially emphasized in the last pro- 

 duction of his life, the IngersoU Lecture on Im- 

 mortality. Yet by this time this consideration 

 had become connected in Fiske's mind with 

 still another thought, which also seemed to him, 

 when it at first came to his mind, decidedly 

 novel and significant. 



(3) This third motive of Fiske's latest ex- 

 pressions bearing on the problem of religion was 

 an extension into the realm that had been origi- 

 nally regarded as unknowable, — an extension, I 

 say, of the concept of Adjustment, of which 

 Fiske had already made use in his final defini- 

 tion of religion in the " Cosmic Philosophy." 

 He had there spoken of religion as an aspira- 

 tion after a complete adjustment to the one in- 

 scrutable Power. How this adjustment was to be 

 accomplished, except merely in the form of this 

 pious wish itself, was not very obvious, so long 

 as no possible way could be defined of reaching 

 any sort of rational conviction with regard to 

 what the Inscrutable might mean by its doings. 

 But in connection with Fiske's growing tend- 

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