PREFACE. 



It is the privilege of a preface that it enables the 

 author to deprecate some misconception of the 

 scope and tendencies of his work by a preliminary 

 explanation. And this privilege is doubly valu- 

 able when the author has to excuse himself for 

 writing a book upon subjects of the highest human 

 interest. For he feels that it is no adequate excuse 

 to plead that the condition of philosophy is such 

 that his efforts cannot make it w^orse, and still less 

 that the conclusions to which he has been led by 

 many years of reflection may present some degree 

 of novelty. He knows that real or apparent novelty 

 is the greatest obstacle to success, even in this most 

 progressive century, and that the mental attitude 

 which was ever eager '* to hear some new thing " 

 is as extinct as the *' Attic salt " which seasoned the 

 disputations of the ancient philosophers. And the 

 more fundamental the ideas are, upon which change 

 is alleged to be necessary, the more violent is the 

 resistance with which novel doctrines are resented. 

 There is no subject, therefore, on which mankind is 

 more conservative, and more unintelligently con- 

 servative, than metaphysics, and a novelty in meta- 

 physics is met as coldly as a novelty in fashions is 

 welcomed warmly. So far, then, from priding him- 

 self upon his novelty, the author would rather hope 



