PREFACE. XI 



to quarrel needlessly with philosophy than science ; 

 but even the votaries of the physical sciences may 

 find it growing more and more impossible to dis- 

 avow their metaphysical basis, and more and more 

 needful to recognize that the problems of philosophy 

 concern the first principles of all knowing and all 

 living. Hence it was with the idea of diminishing 

 this estrangement between philosophy and ''science," 

 that the author has attempted to bring out the 

 metaphysical conclusions implied in the frank and 

 full acceptance of the methods of modern science, 

 and in the hope that both parties might discover 

 in them some possibility of composing their differ- 

 ences in a manner equally advantageous and honour- 

 able to both. 



But though the shock of diametrically opposed 

 views is generating in many thoughtful minds, the 

 conviction that their common ground and reconcili- 

 ation must be sought deeper down than has been the 

 fashion, the anti-metaphysical surface current is still 

 sufficiently violent, both in religion and in science, to 

 render discretion the duty of all who do not covet 

 the barren honours of a useless martyrdom. Hence 

 it would be needless to assign any further reason for 

 the last point it is necessary to allude to, viz., the 

 anonymity of the Riddles of the Sphinx, even if the 

 professional position of its author were such that he 

 could afford to disregard men's intolerance of real 

 or seeming innovation. For the splendid satire of 

 Plato is unfortunately still too true to the spirit of 

 men's treatment of those whose souls have risen by 

 rough paths of speculation to the supernal spheres 

 of metaphysics, and who return to tell them that the 

 shadows on the walls of their Cave are not the 

 whole truth, nor precisely what their nurses have 



