VIU PREFACE 



prefacing the lecture with some matter — chiefly 

 elementary or recapitulatory — to which I have 

 given the title of " Prolegomena." I wish I could 

 have hit upon a heading of less pedantic aspect 

 which would have served my purpose ; and if it 

 be urged that the new building looks over large 

 for the edifice to which it is added, I can only 

 plead the precedent of the ancient architects, 

 who always made the adytum the smallest part 

 of the temple. 



If I had attempted to reply in full to the 

 criticisms to which I have referred, I know not 

 what extent of ground would have been covered 

 by my pronaos. All I have endeavoured to do, 

 at present, is to remove that which seems to 

 have proved a stumbling-block to many — namely, 

 the apparent paradox that ethical nature, while 

 born of cosmic nature, is necessarily at enmity 

 with its parent. Unless the arguments set forth 

 in the Prolegomena, in the simplest language at 

 my command, have some flaw which I am unable 

 to discern, this seeming paradox is a truth, as 

 great as it is plain, the recognition of which 

 is fundamental for the ethical philosojDher. 



We cannot do without our inheritance from the 

 forefathers who were the puppets of the cosmic 

 process ; the society which renounces it must 

 be destroyed from without. Still less can we do 

 with too much of it ; the society in which it 

 dominates must be destroyed from within. 



