DEDICATION.
I dedicate this book to that philosophy which can argue without anger, can have a disbelief without sustaining it by insolence; which can pause on the brink of a chasm, and, because there happens to be no bridge by which it can cross over, will not proclaim to all the world that no bridge can be built; to the philosophy which sees as much beauty in a doubt as in a solution, and has not ventured, or mayhap will never venture, to affix a limit to human thought, or define the prerogatives of our Lord and Creator. I do not dedicate it to the Free Thinker, but to the Just Thinker. The highest reverence exists oftener than otherwise in the humblest soul, and the night of our ignorance is lit by stars to accustom us to the effulgence of the dawn. The future is the poetry of our hope; the present our rest, from which we extend the wings of memory for the longer and more glorious flight toward the end. My work will be found to look faintly but fondly to those things, if it is read aright; and so in all and everything I humbly say that I have no higher ambition than to serve my Master.