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Excerpt from The Dictionary of National Biography: 1931-1940 The value of the book has to be esti mated by the Vision, skill, and resolution with which it pursued its sweeping design. It is only accurate to say that, after Hobbes, no English philosopher, before Alexander, had built in accordance with so ambitious an architectural plan or had given comparable attention to the pro portion and solidity of all the parts of his edifice. In less than a decade the general Opinion was that the book marked the end of an epoch rather than a fresh beginning, and Alexander himself considered that the future was with A. N. Whitehead, rather than with himself, so far as such a philo sophy had a future. He preferred to let his book stand with very few published afterthoughts, although his essay on Spinoza and Time (1921) is an important supplement. Probably several decades must elapse before a verdict can be given with the relative finality which such cases permit. Whatever that later verdict may be, it is undeniable, in the interim, that Alexander was a great philosophical archi teet whose skill and resourcefulness deserve abiding recognition. In himself he was modest although not self-depreciating. He wrote and planned in the grand manner simply because no other manner suited his theme. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.