AUTHOK'S PREFACE. XV 



has recently made. Other isolated questions of our 

 modern natural philosophy, which are peculiarly 

 interesting, have been dealt with in my Collected 

 Popular Lectures on the Subject of Evolution (1878). 

 Finally, I have briefly presented the broad principles 

 of my monistic philosophy and its relation to the 

 dominant faith in my Confession of Faith of a Man of 

 Science : Monism as a Connecting Link between Religion 

 and Science 1 (1892, eighth edition, 1899). 



The present work on The Riddle of the Universe is 

 the continuation, confirmation, and integration of the 

 views which I have urged for a generation in the 

 aforesaid volumes. It marks the close of my studies 

 on the monistic conception of the universe. The 

 earlier plan, which I projected many years ago, of 

 constructing a complete " System of Monistic Philo- 

 sophy " on the basis of evolution, will never be carried 

 into effect now. My strength is no longer equal to 

 the task, and many warnings of approaching age 

 urge me to desist. Indeed, I am wholly a child of 

 the nineteenth century, and with its close I draw the 

 line under my life's work. 



The vast extension of human knowledge which has 

 taken place during the present century, owing to a 

 happy division of labour, makes it impossible to-day 

 to range over all its branches with equal thorough- 

 ness, and to show their essential unity and connec- 

 tion. Even the genius of the highest type, having an 



1 English translation, by J. Gilchrist, with the title of Monism. 



