FOREWORD

seem to me to point, as symptoms, to facts which present themselves to-day as serious obstacles in the path of any one aiming at literary activity in regard to the higher problems of knowledge. Thus I must go on my way, indifferent, whether one man gives me the good advice to read Kant, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a landmark German philosopher who argued that the human mind shapes our experience of reality, though he believed "things-in-themselves" remained unknowable. or another hunts me as a heretic because I agree with Haeckel. Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was an influential German biologist and philosopher who championed Darwin’s theories and sought a scientific explanation for all of life's mysteries. And so I have also written upon Mysticism, In this context, mysticism refers to the pursuit of direct, inner spiritual experience rather than just intellectual or sensory knowledge. wholly indifferent as to how a faithful and believing materialist A philosopher who believes that physical matter is the only reality and that spiritual or mental phenomena are just products of material interactions. may judge of me. I would only like—so that printers' ink may not be wasted wholly without need—to inform any one who may, perchance advise me to read Haeckel’s Riddle of the Universe, First published in 1899 as Die Welträthsel, this work was an international bestseller that promoted a scientific, evolutionary worldview over traditional religious dogmas. that during the last few months I have delivered about thirty lectures upon the said work.

I hope to have shown in this book that one may be a faithful adherent of