Page:Riddles of the Sphinx (1891).djvu/11

 to quarrel needlessly with philosophy than science; but even the votaries of the physical sciences may find it growing more and more impossible to disavow their metaphysical basis, and more and more needful to recognize that the problems of philosophy concern the first principles of all knowing and all living. Hence it was with the idea of diminishing this estrangement between philosophy and “science,” that the author has attempted to bring out the metaphysical conclusions implied in the frank and full acceptance of the methods of modern science, and in the hope that both parties might discover in them some possibility of composing their differences in a manner equally advantageous and honourable to both.

But though the shock of diametrically opposed views is generating in many thoughtful minds, the conviction that their common ground and reconciliation must be sought deeper down than has been the fashion, the anti-metaphysical surface current is still sufficiently violent, both in religion and in science, to render discretion the duty of all who do not covet the barren honours of a useless martyrdom. Hence it would be needless to assign any further reason for the last point it is necessary to allude to, viz., the anonymity of the Riddles of the Sphinx, even if the professional position of its author were such that he could afford to disregard men’s intolerance of real or seeming innovation. For the splendid satire of Plato is unfortunately still too true to the spirit of men’s treatment of those whose souls have risen by rough paths of speculation to the supernal spheres of metaphysics, and who return to tell them that the shadows on the walls of their Cave are not the whole truth, nor precisely what their nurses have