That which lies immediately below this surface, accessible to any research worthy of the name is, that these two so new extraordinary developments of the modern philosophy which come to us without any _superficially_ avowed connexion, which come to us as _branches_ of learning merely, do in fact meet and unite in one stem, 'which has a quality of entireness and continuance throughout,' even to the most delicate fibre of them both, even to the 'roots' of their trunk, 'and the strings of those roots,' which trunk lies below the surface of that age, buried, carefully buried, for reasons assigned; and that it is the sap of this concealed trunk, this new trunk of sciences, which makes both these branches so vigorous, which makes the flowers and the fruit both so fine, and so unlike anything that we have had from any other source in the way of literature or art. The question of the authorship of the great philosophic poems which are the legacy of the Elizabethan Age to us, is an incidental question in this inquiry, and is incidentally treated here. The discovery of the authorship of these works was the necessary incident to that more thorough inquiry into their nature and design, of which the views contained in this volume are the result. At a certain stage of this inquiry,--in the later stages of it,--that discovery became inevitable. The primary question here is one of universal immediate practical concern and interest. The solution of this literary problem, happens to be involved in it. It was the necessary prescribed, pre-ordered incident of the reproduction and reintegration of the Inductive Philosophy in its application to its 'principal' and 'noblest subjects,' its 'more chosen subjects.' The HISTORICAL KEY to the Elizabethan Art of Tradition, which formed the first book of this work as it was originally prepared for the press, is not included in the present publication. It was the part of the work first written, and the results of more recent research require to be incorporated in it, in order that it should represent adequately, in that particular aspect of it, the historical discovery which it is the object of this work to produce. Moreover, the demonstration which is contained in this volume appeared to constitute properly a volume of itself. Those who examine the subject from this ground, will find the external collateral evidence, the ample historical confirmation which is at hand, not necessary for the support of the propositions advanced here, though it will, of course, be inquired for, when once this ground is made.