Although the title given to these two series of Essays may seem to apply directly only to the last essay of the Second Series, a little thought will show that it indicates a general direction already marked in the author's earliest contribution to Mind, reprinted, with slight revisions, at the beginning of the First Series. Preoccupation with historical representatives of the same way of thinking is indicated by the two essays on Giordano Bruno; and not less by the stimulus received from the great creationist thinker Charles Renouvier, whose critical or (as he called it in discipleship of Kant) “criticist” position in relation to all doctrines of evolutionary pantheism has had a profoundly modifying influence on both the metaphysical and the ethical ideas developed later.

The studies in philosophy of history and history of philosophy spring obviously from a continuation of the same interest; for of course man, whatever his ultimate essence may be, has his part in the process of the world. The consideration of man further leads to a consideration of the nature of his knowledge of himself and of things; and on this fundamental question there is a certain development of view from the earlier to the later essays. A brief statement in personal form will here not be out of place.