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viii PREFACE. 



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 com- 

 mand, have some flaw which I am unable to dis- 

 cern, this seeming paradox is a truth, as great as 

 it is plain, the recognition of which is fundamental 

 for the ethical philosopher. 



We cannot do without our inheritance from 

 the k>refathers who were the puppets of the cos- 

 mic 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 domi- 

 nates must be destroyed from within. 



The motive of the drama of human life is 

 the necessity, laid upon every man who comes 

 into the world, of discovering the mean between 



