INTRODUCTION 



man's phrases. Fiske now returned to his nat- 

 ural studies — those of history and of human 

 nature. Pursuing these as he did, under a 

 pressure of not altogether welcome worldly 

 cares, he was forced to postpone certain of his 

 favourite plans for a wide and philosophical 

 study of human history until it was too late to 

 carry them out at all. The stream of his in- 

 X'estigation was forced to wander long over 

 plains, fertile indeed, but remote from the hea- 

 ven-piercing mountains of thought where his 

 youthful aspirations had been nurtured. As 

 he himself tells us, he read, during the later 

 period of his life, very little philosophical lit- 

 erature. But he remained loyal to his love of 

 Unity and Humanity in thought, and to his 

 faith in the essential Wholesomeness of things. 

 When he looked back on the greater problems 

 of philosophy, his disposition to interpret the 

 world in terms of man — a disposition nourished 

 by his historical studies, as it had been from the 

 start determined by his nature — was the princi- 

 pal motive that led to his gradual transformation 

 of opinion. His interest in lofty religious ideals 

 joined itself in his mind with this interest in 

 humanity, both to determine the problems 

 upon which he most dwelt, whenever he now 

 thought of philosophy at all, and to suggest 

 their solution. His beautifully childlike nature 

 cxxxvii 



