



Produced by Kris Marissens and Marc D'Hooghe at
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available by the Internet Archive.)





MAJOR PROPHETS

OF TO-DAY

BY

EDWIN E. SLOSSON, M.S., PH.D.


LITERARY EDITOR OF "THE INDEPENDENT"

ASSOCIATE IN THE COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM

AUTHOR OF "GREAT AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES," ETC


BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1916



                              TO MY WIFE
                          MAY PRESTON SLOSSON
                WHO WAS THE COMPANION OF MY PILGRIMAGE
                           TO THE OLD WORLD
                       IN SEARCH OF NEW PROPHETS
                              THIS VOLUME
                      IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED




[Illustration: Maeterlinck]



PREFACE


Each age has its own prophets, men who bring to it distinctive messages
and present them in such effective form as to sway the currents of
contemporary thought. No age perhaps has had more diverse theories
of life and the meaning of things presented to it than our own, and
certainly none has ever given such an opportunity for the original
thinker to reach quickly a world-wide audience as he can now through
the medium of cheap books and free schools.

This volume originated in my own desire to find out what was being
said by certain persons who, I had reason to believe, were worth
attention. But unless one is abnormally selfish, he always wants to
introduce others to an interesting acquaintance. It is then simply as
introductions that I would wish the following chapters to be taken.
In one way or another such men are influencing the thought of all of
us, but since we mostly get their philosophy at second hand--or at
third, fourth, or nth hand--we fail to recognize its origin and are apt
to misconceive its intent. Ideas that reach us in fragmentary form,
and often after multiple translation through minds sometimes alien
or hostile, are not very useful. It is always safer to drink at the
source. I have endeavored to give some idea of the scope and character
of each man's work, so that the reader may judge for himself whether
it is profitable for him to follow up the acquaintance. If he does, he
will find at the end of the chapter directions how to proceed further.

We imagine we can understand a man better if we can see his face,
even his photograph. This may be a superstition, but, if so, it
is a superstition worth deferring to by one who aspires to be an
interpreter. So in the summer of 1910 I went to see the six men
included in this first volume in their homes, not with the hope of
getting any new and unpublished opinions, not with the expectation of
gaining a personal acquaintance that would give me any deeper insight
into their mental processes, but merely to convince myself that they
are flesh and blood, instead of paper and ink. If I can convince the
reader of this, my purpose will be accomplished.

In the choice of names to be included in the list, I was guided
primarily by the idea that I should be most likely to interest others
in the men who have most interested me. Since the object of the book
is to serve as an introduction to the works of the authors, not as a
substitute for them, the choice was limited to those who have given
expression to their philosophical views in a sufficiently popular form
to be attractive to the general reader. It was necessary to select
representatives of diverse types of thought, and it was not possible
to confine the choice to the philosophical profession, for in our day
philosophy has escaped from its classroom and often displays more
activity outside than in it. So I have included men of science and
letters as well as philosophers of the chair.

The group comprised in this volume includes: Maurice Maeterlinck,
dramatist and essayist, interpreter of the animate and inanimate world;
Henri Bergson, of the Collège de France, whose intuitive philosophy
has been introduced into America by the late William James; Henri
Poincaré, of the French Academy, mathematician and astronomer; Élie
Metchnikoff, director of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, author
of studies in optimistic philosophy; Wilhelm Ostwald, of Leipzig
University, recipient of the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1909, founder
of the _Annals of Natural Philosophy_, and Ernst Haeckel, of Jena
University, veteran zoölogist, champion of Darwinism and Monism, author
of the "Riddle of the Universe."

In large part the chapters of this volume have appeared in the
_Independent_ during the last three years in a series under the general
title of "Twelve Major Prophets of To-day", which includes similar
articles on Rudolf Eucken, Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton,
F. C. S. Schiller, and John Dewey, and I am indebted to that periodical
for the privilege of book publication.

                                             EDWIN E. SLOSSON.
NEW YORK,
   March 1, 1914.




CONTENTS


     I. MAURICE MAETERLINCK
    II. HENRI BERGSON
