VI PREFACE. 



I 



the few hundreds who have studied philosophy at our 

 universities, but to the many thousands of educated 

 people who, without having made a special study of 

 Philosophy or of Science, have yet a lively interest in 

 the great and pregnant controversies of our age, as well 

 as in the permanent questions which concern every 

 human being as such, and who have ample intelligence 

 to comprehend them both, if only they are not treated 

 exclusively in the formidable phraseology of the Schools. 

 In order to reach this wider class at which I aim, 

 I have endeavoured in the following pages to minimize 

 scientific terms and to translate, as far as might be 

 safely ventured, the abstract symbols and general 

 formulas in which Philosophy has hitherto found it 

 most convenient to express herself, but by which she 

 has kept herself above the general comprehension, into 

 the more concrete conceptions of a general liberal 

 culture. To do this to some extent where philosophical 

 arguments are employed or the special thoughts of phi- 

 losophers come under purview was absolutely necessary 

 to be understood ; and general intelligibility, though 

 perhaps not fairly to be expected in a philosopher's 

 system, is to some considerable extent expected in a 

 work like the present, which undertakes an exposition 

 of a faith professing to repose on clear and scientific 

 grounds, and presumably meant for all mankind. 



Up to the present the philosopher and the general 

 reader have lived in separate spheres, and have almost 

 come to regard each other as natural enemies. A work 



