INTRODUCTORY. 



In view of this anarchy of the intellectual com- 

 monwealth, the aim of this essay will be threefold. 

 Its first design will be to record a protest against 

 the current despair of a theoretic understanding of 

 the meaning of life, a protest for which it should, 

 even if unsuccessful, deserve at least the thanks 

 which the unyielding constancy of the Roman 

 Senate bestowed upon the general who had brought 

 about the catastrophe of Cannae, for not having 

 despaired of the republic. Secondly, it aims at 

 tracing the far-reaching consequences of this super- 

 ficial and apparently unimportant despair of philo- 

 sophy, and tracking it to its ultimate foundation in 

 utter pessimism and complete negation. Thirdly, 

 its main object will be to put forward a sketch of 

 a possible solution of the great problems of philo- 

 sophy, which may, it is hoped, claim to proceed 

 from a new combination of the old materials, to 

 reconcile the present antagonism of several import- 

 ant ways of thinking, and to afford to its conclusions 

 a more or less considerable degree of probability. 

 And this probability will assuredly be materially 

 enhanced if it can be shown that these conclusions, 

 possible in themselves, are consistent with one 

 another, and capable of combining in a systematic 

 and organic view of the whole world, of giving a 

 complete answer to the problems of life, an answer 

 which, it is hoped, may be found to satisfy not only 

 the desiderata of knowledge, but also, substantially, 

 the aspirations of the human soul. To absolute 

 certainty its conclusions do not pretend ; for cer- 

 tainty does not exist outside of the abstractions of 

 mathematics and of the barren sphere of formal 

 logic. In science and in practical life probability 

 is all-important, and hence any answer to the ques 



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