390 THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. 



opposition may be toned down to a certain degree on 

 clear and logical reflection — may, indeed, even be 

 converted into a friendly harmony. In a thoroughly 

 logical mind, applying the highest principles with 

 equal force in the entire field of the cosmos — in 

 both organic and inorganic nature — the antithetical 

 positions of theism and pantheism, vitalism and 

 mechanism, approach until they touch each other. 

 Unfortunately, consecutive thought is a rare pheno- 

 menon in nature. The great majority of philosophers 

 are content to grasp with the right hand the pure 

 knowledge that is built on experience, but they will 

 not part with the mystic faith based on revelation, to 

 which they cling with the left. The best type of this 

 contradictory dualism is the conflict of pure and 

 practical reason in the critical philosophy of the 

 most famous of modern thinkers, Immanuel Kant. 



On the other hand, the number is always small of 

 the thinkers who will boldly reject dualism and 

 embrace pure monism. That is equally true of 

 consistent idealists and theists, and of logical realists 

 and pantheists. However, the reconciliation of these 

 apparent antitheses, and, consequently, the advance 

 towards the solution of the fundamental riddle of the 

 universe, is brought nearer to us every year in the 

 ever-increasing growth of our knowledge of nature. 

 "We may, therefore, express a hope that the twentieth 

 century will complete the task of resolving the anti- 

 theses, and, by the construction of a system of pure 

 monism, spread far and wide the long-desired unity 

 of world-conception. Germany's greatest thinker and 

 poet, whose 150th anniversary will soon be upon us 

 — Wolfgang Goethe — gave this " philosophy of unity " 

 a perfect poetic expression, at the very beginning of 



