Page:The Pathway to Reality, Volume 1 (1903).djvu/8

Rh contain the outcome of meditations, extending over some years, about the meaning and nature of Ultimate Reality. My chief ground for hope about the conclusion arrived at is that in substance it has been arrived at long ago. It seems to me that the history of speculative thought, properly read, is no record of discordant hypotheses. It is rather the story of the elaboration of a great conception, in the building up of which, from time to time, construction has been broadened by criticism, and criticism has then been succeeded by more adequate construction. But the main structure of the conception has remained unaltered. Its foundations were laid, more than two thousand years ago, by Aristotle, and these foundations were uncovered, and the structure overhauled, by the great German thinkers who began to interpret Aristotle at the beginning of the last century. As the Time Spirit brings fresh materials with which to work, that structure will have to be again overhauled and added to. It is the legitimate work of ordinary mortals vii