INTRODUCTION.
By Rev. F. C. McConnell, D.D.
Dr. Stafford performed a duty to his fellow men, when he wrote this book. Few men are so well qualified as he, by nature and training, to accomplish such a task.
Dr. Stafford has been a careful student of philosophy and theology for more than a decade of years since he was graduated from one of our best institutions and pursued studies in one of the German universities.
It is but simple justice, to say that the book maintains throughout, the attitude of scholarly research and perfect fairness. It has not been the author's method to caricature, but to balance statement against statement, with the poise of a scholar who knows his ground and is familiar with the processes of thought, with which he deals, quoting correctly from sages and from modern scholars with equal facility, being versed in the Greek and the Latin tongues, in which the ancient authors wrote, and also in the German language in which are translations of their works.
Let it be remembered that it is not Dr. Stafford's immediate purpose to refute Christian Science. He has taken for his task the single object of showing where the founder of Christian Science and the Neoplatonists agree. And this he does show to be true of their ideas, their philosophy and often of their verbiage itself, even to the use of imagery and illustration. Parallel thoughts and statements are introduced with conclusions reached, alike in both Neoplatonism and Christian Science, covering so completely the whole range of
