Book Description
Excerpt from Evolution and Spiritual Life Comparatively little detailed consideration is given in the present book to the conclusions of particular schools of philosophy, except where a reference to one system or another has seemed desirable for the purpose of illustrating a definite point. William James justly complains that The abuse of technicality is seen in the infrequency with which, in philosophical literature, metaphysical questions are discussed directly on their own merits. Almost always they are handled, as if through a heavy woollen curtain, the veil of pre vious philosophers' opinions. Alternatives are wrapped in proper names, as if it were indecent for a truth to go naked. I have tried, rather, to work from point to point, handling everything with bare fingers, and only discovering by touch the shape of each lump of fact and its contacts with the next. And the shapes and contacts of some were unexpected. But clothes are ornamental; and these ornaments we have come to consider essential to decency. There fore, both for the sake of our ideas of what is suitable, and to escape arrest by the police who guard our thoughts, I have decked the body of my work with more or less of the usual habiliments 1. 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.
