SIX MAJOR PROPHETS
BY
EDWIN E. SLOSSON, M.S., Ph.D.
LITERARY EDITOR OF "THE INDEPENDENT"
ASSOCIATE IN THE COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
AUTHOR OF "MAJOR PROPHETS OF TO-DAY," ETC.
Whoever dies without recognizing the prophet of his time
dies the deathof a pagan. — Mohammedan proverb.
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1917
TO MY SON
PRESTON WILLIAM SLOSSON
WHOSE THOUGHTS AND PHRASES
I HAVE MORE FREELY INCORPORATED
THAN I AMWILLING TO ACKNOWLEDGE
ELSEWHERE THAN ON THIS PAGE,
THIS VOLUME
ISGRATEFULLY DEDICATED
PREFACE
A few years ago it occurred to me that there were living on the sameplanet and at the same time as myself some interesting people whom Ihad never seen and did not know so much about as I should. Since theyor I might die at any moment, I determined not to delay longer. So Iprepared a list of twelve men who seemed to me most worth knowing, andthen I set out to see them; not with the hope of becoming personallyacquainted with them or even with the object of interviewing them,but chiefly to satisfy myself that they really existed. One doesnot go to Switzerland to find out how high the Alps are or how theylook. The traveler can get their altitude from Baedeker and theirappearance from photographs, but if he is to talk about them with anysense of self-confidence he must have come within hailing distance ofthe mountains themselves. It is sufficient to say that I got closeenough to the Alps I had chosen to be able to vouch for their actuality.
The men I selected for study were those who, whether they calledthemselves philosophers or not, seemed to me to have a definitephilosophy of life, those who had a message for their own times ofsufficient importance and distinctiveness to merit public attention.It is my purpose in these sketches to show the trend and importanceof these diverse theories, so that a reader who had not had theopportunity to range over the complete works of a dozen authorsmight find which of them was best adapted to serve him as "guide,philosopher, and friend." In a word, my part is merely to act asthe host at a reception who introduces his guests and then leavesthem to follow up such acquaintanceships as seem profitable. My aimis exposition rather than criticism. Although I have not thought itnecessary absolutely to suppress my own opinions, I trust this hasnot prevented me from giving a fair and sufficiently sympatheticpresentation of each man's views in turn.
My list of the "Twelve Major Prophets of Today" consisted of thefollowing names: Maurice Maeterlinck, Henri Bergson, Henri Poincaré,Elie Metchnikoff, Wilhelm Ostwald, Ernst Haeckel, George BernardShaw, Herbert George Wells, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, F. C. S.Schiller, John Dewey, and Rudolf Eucken. I had not taken nationalityinto consideration, but I found that I had chosen four from England,three from Germany, two from France, and one each from Belgium, Russia,and the United States of America. Four of the twelve were professorso