These Lectures contain the outcome of meditations,
extending over some years, about the meaning and
nature of Ultimate Reality. My chief ground for
hope about the conclusion arrived at is that in
substance it has been arrived at long ago. It
seems to me that the history of speculative
thought, properly read, is no record of discordant
hypotheses. It is rather the story of the elaboration of a great conception, in the building up of
which, from time to time, construction has been
broadened by criticism, and criticism has then
been succeeded by more adequate construction.
But the main structure of the conception has
remained unaltered. Its foundations were laid,
more than two thousand years ago, by Aristotle,
and these foundations were uncovered, and the
structure overhauled, by the great German thinkers
who began to interpret Aristotle at the beginning
of the last century. As the Time Spirit brings
fresh materials with which to work, that structure will have to be again overhauled and added
to. It is the legitimate work of ordinary mortals
vii
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PREFACE