"The present study of the monistic philosophy is intended for thoughtful readers of every condition who are united in an honest search for the truth. An intensification of this effort of man to attain a knowledge of the truth is one of the most salient features of the nineteenth century. That is easily explained, in the first place, by the immense progress of science, especially in its most important branch, the history of humanity; it is due, in the second place, to the open contradiction that has developed during the century between science and the traditional "Revelation"; and, finally, it arises from the inevitable extension and deepening of the rational demand for an elucidation of the innumerable facts that have been recently brought to light, and for a fuller knowledge of their causes"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

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Excerpt from The Riddle of the Universe: At the Close of the Nineteenth Century The hour has come for us to commence our retro spect of one of the most wonderful sections of time that was ever measured by the sweep of the earth. Already the expert is at work dissecting out and studying his particular phase of that vast world of thought and action we call the nineteenth century. Art, literature, commerce, industry, politics, ethics all have their high interpreters among us; but in the chance of life it has fallen out that there is none to read aright for us, in historic retrospect, what after ages will probably regard as the most salient feature of the nineteenth century - the conflict of theology with philosophy and science. The pens of our Huxleys, and Tyndalls, and Darwins lie where they fell there is none left in strength among us to sum up the issues of that struggle with knowledge and sympathy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Monism is the metaphysical and theological view that all is one, that there are no fundamental divisions, and that a unified set of laws underlie all of nature, which author Ernst Haeckel brilliantly examines.