Page:Science and the Modern World.djvu/14

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is to be published in the August number of the Atlantic Monthly of this year (1925). The tenth and eleventh chapters — ‘Abstraction’ and ‘God’ — are additions which now appear for the first time. But the book represents one train of thought, and the antecedent utilisation of some of its contents is a subsidiary point.

There has been no occasion in the text to make detailed reference to Lloyd Morgan’s Emergent Evolution or to Alexander’s Space, Time and Deity. It will be obvious to readers that I have found them very suggestive. I am especially indebted to Alexander’s great work. The wide scope of the present book makes it impossible to acknowledge in detail the various sources of information or of ideas. The book is the product of thought and reading in past years, which were not undertaken with any anticipation of utilisation for the present purpose. Accordingly it would now be impossible for me to give reference to my sources for details, even if it were desirable so to do. But there is no need: the facts which are relied upon are simple and well known. On the philosophical side, any consideration of epistemology has been entirely excluded. It would have been impossible to discuss that topic without upsetting the whole balance of the work. The key to the book is the sense of the overwhelming importance of a prevalent philosophy.

My most grateful thanks are due to my colleague Mr. Raphael Demos for reading the proofs and for the suggestion of many improvements in expression.

Harvard University,

June 29, 1925.