Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/25

6 nature, as every philosophy has to be concerned. And in the latter half of this course the Philosophy of Nature will play a part in our investigation. But the central problem of our discussion will be the question: What is Reality?

In thus stating, in the opening words, the plan of these lectures, I do so with a full sense of the shadow that such a programme may, at the first glimpse, seem to cast upon the prospects of our whole undertaking. It is true that, in calling the fundamental problems of the Metaphysic of Religion relatively neglected, I do not fail to recognize that they are both ancient and celebrated, and that some of us may think them even hackneyed. It is certainly not uncommon to call them antiquated. But what I have meant by the phrase “relatively neglected” is that, compared with the more easily accessible fashions of dealing with Natural Religion, the strictly metaphysical treatment less frequently involves that sort of ardent hand-to-hand struggle with the genuine issues themselves that goes on when men are hopefully interested in a study for its own sake. It is one thing to expound, or even to assail, the theology of Hegel or of St. Thomas, or to report any of those various quaint opinions of philosophers in which even the popular mind often delights. It is another thing to grapple with the issues of life for one’s self. The wiser religions have always told us that we cannot be saved through the piety of our neighbors, but have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Well, just so the theoretical student of Natural