INTRODUCTION 



so noble an end cannot mean that mere death 

 shall crown the work. 



40. In the Preface to " The Idea of God," 

 as we have already seen, Fiske undertakes an 

 apology for his philosophical development thus 

 far, and insists upon the close tie that binds his 

 more recent thinking to the " Cosmic Philoso- 

 phy." He cites the passages of the " Cosmic 

 Philosophy " to which we before alluded as con- 

 taining what we called his "germinal thoughts " 

 about religion. He indicates very definitely that 

 it is indeed the teleological interpretation of 

 human evolution which has become prominent, 

 of late, in his mind. The doctrine of evolution, 

 properly interpreted, " replaces man in his old 

 position of headship in the universe, even as in 

 the days of Dante and Aquinas. That which 

 the pre-Copernican astronomy naively thought 

 to do by placing the home of man in the centre 

 of the physical universe, the Darwinian biology 

 profoundly accomplishes by exhibiting Man as 

 the terminal fact in that stupendous process of 

 evolution whereby things have come to be what 

 they are. In the deepest sense it is as true as it 

 ever was held to be, that the world was made 

 for Man, and that the bringing forth in him of 

 those qualities which we call highest and holiest 

 is the final cause of creation." 



The text of this discussion on the " Idea of 

 cxxv 



