XX. PREFACE.

am now sending you an interleaved proof-copy, is that I have therein endeavoured earnestly to be of service to all those earnest seekers after a final solution of the ultimate problems of life, who are not content with the solutions now extant. I believe that such an endeavour deserves sympathy ; I believe that it will be more successful if I have the help and co-opera- tion of sympathetic friends than if it were left to my own unaided resources ; and I believe that you can and will give such help effectively. This help from you is the more needed as the many distractions of a life, which past karma has thrown along the lines of office and the business of the householder, rather than those of literary pursuits and the studious leisure of the scholar, have prevented me from making this work anything more than the merest out- lines of the all-embracing subject of metaphysic, well defined as ' completely unified knowledge,' treated therein — and those outlines too, full of immaturity of thought, possible extravagance of expression, and certain lack of the finish of scholarship.
" I therefore pray that you will look through this little book and, unless you think it wholly useless for the purpose mentioned, will send it back to me after having noted on the blank pages all obscure or doubtful and debatable or
PREFACE. xxi.
positively inaccurate and inconsistent statements of fact, falseness or exaggeration of sentiment, and confusion or illogic of argument and marshalling of ideas, that you may notice."
Suggestions for improvement were received in chronological order from : Pt. Ganganath Jha, Professor of Samskrit, Muir Central College, Allahabad. Babu Govinda Das, of Benares (my elder brother). Dr. Hiibbe-Schleiden, of Dohren bei Hannover, Germany. Dr. J. H. Stirling, of Edinburgh. Prof. J. E. McTaggart, of Trinity College, Cambridge. Pt. M. S. Tripathi, author of A Sketch of Veddnta Philosophy, of Nadiad. P. T. Shrinivasa lyengar, Esq., M.A., Principal Narsingh Row College, Vizagapatam. J. Scott, Esq., M.A., Principal, Bahauddin College, Junagadh. Ayodhya Das, Esq., B.A., Barrister-at-Law, Gorakhpur. Pt. Sakharam G. Pandit, Branch Inspector, Theo- sophical Society, Benares. Pt. Bhavani Shankar, Branch Inspector, Theosophical Society, Benares.