PREFATORY NOTE. THE present volume represents all the remaining manuscript for Problems of Life and Mind so far as it was left by the Author in a state that he would have allowed to be fit for publication. Much of it was intended to be rewritten, and the whole, if it had undergone his revision, would have received that alternate condensation and expansion sure to be needed in a work which has been of many years' growth, and which treats of a continually growing subject. Some repetitions would have been avoided, many arguments would have been better nourished with illustration, and in the Third Problem there would doubtless have been a more evident order in the succession of chapters, the actual arrangement being partly the result of conjecture. The Fourth Problem, of which the later pages were written hardly more than three weeks before the Author's death, is but a fragment: it will perhaps not be felt the less worthy of attention by those readers who have followed his previous works with interest and sympathy. In correcting the proof-sheets of this volume the Editor has been generously aided by Dr. Michael Foster and Mr. James Sully. |