It would be impossible for any informed observer at the present time, in the midst of our Western civilisation, to remain altogether unconscious of the character and dimensions of a vast process of change which, beneath the outward surface of events, is in progress in the world around us. The great controversies, scientific and religious, which filled the nineteenth century, have broadened out far beyond the narrow boundaries within which the specialists imagined them to be confined. The older antagonists in many of these controversies still continue, as they will doubtless continue to the end, to confront each other in the same attitudes of opposition as at the beginning. But the general mind is no longer closely engaged with the past aspects of these disputes. It is becoming more and more preoccupied with the larger problems beyond, which the new knowledge has brought fully into view, and with the immense social and political issues that are now seen to be ultimately involved.The pTable of Contents CHAPTER I; PAGE; The Close of an Era i; CHAPTER II; The Shifting of the Centre of Significance in the Evolutionary Hypothesis-The Principle of Projected Efficiency30; CHAPTER III The Position in Modern Thought 65; CHAPTER IV The Phenomenon of Western Liberalism 97; CHAPTER V The Problem135; CHAPTER VI The Ascendency of the Present 150; CHAPTER VII; PAGE; The Passing of the Present under the Control; ok the Future194; CHAPTER VIII; The Development of the Great Antinomy in; Western History : First Stage 239; CHAPTER IX; The Development of the Great Antinomy in; Western History : Second Stage 288; CHAPTER X The Modern World-Conflict335; CHAPTER XI; Towards the Future 389; APPENDIX475About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.