The signs of the times are propitious. To-day the conflict between reason and faith, science and religion, presents many hopeful indications of an approaching conciliation. Candid men in both fields are earnestly working, and patiently watching, and hourly catching clearer glimpses of the everlasting harmony which pervades the universe of being and of thought. Every, even the smallest, contribution made with an honest purpose to give confidence and collimation to this movement, will be welcome to all earnest minds. This may be our apology for attempting a task that belongs to stronger intellects than ours. It is obvious, at first thought, that the questions before us admit of no loose and desultory treatment. Abysses are not to be concealed by laurel screens, or chasms bridged by flowers of rhetoric. If we are to reach any satisfactory conclusions, our procedure must be rigidly systematic and logically exact. We must have a fixed point of departure, and, if possible, a faultless method of advance. The fundamental question must be determined. The central problem must be ascertained, and we must deal with all correlative questions in their logical connection with the one fundamental inquiry. First of all, then, can we place that central problem clearly before our mental vision? Amid the diverse questions which spontaneously arise in presence of the diversified phenomena of nature, and the wonderful evolutions of humanity, can we fix upon the _one_ question in which all others are involved--the grand underlying problem which comprehends them all? A little reflection will make it apparent that the problem of all problems is this-- _How shall we conceive aright the_ FIRST PRINCIPLE _and_ ORIGIN _of all things, itself unoriginated and unbeginning, the source of all beginnings? Or again, what is that_ FIRST PRINCIPLE _which, being assumed, shall be found a sufficient explanation of the motion and change, the order and adaptation, the life and feeling, the consciousness and reason, we call, collectively, the universe_? This is clearly the fundamental question on which all the others are grounded, and in the solution of which they have their solution.