The ambitious object of the present little volume is to present in a brief space and in plain everyday language the evidence now available as to what man is, how he came about, what the future holds, what sort of life he ought to lead and how his traditional beliefs on these matters originated.

The answers to these questions are plain enough to anyone who has time to study the evidence thoroughly. They lead to an attitude to life which the author calls "Realism." a philosophy which does not make any great demands on its adherents beyond stimulating their enthusiasm for and enjoyment of life but which he hopes may prove helpful to anyone who is seeking explanations and is unable to accept the current religious ones

During the last generation. for the first tlme in history, man has accumulated sufficient verifiable facts to be able to weave a true picture of himself and the universe in whlch he lives. Comparatively few people realise how new present-day knowledge is. The bulk of it is only a few hundred years old and some branches of knowledge have been revolutionised even within a generation.

As a result of the sudden vast and rapid growth of knowledge it was inevitable that fundamental opinions should suffer change. The picture of the Universe which present-day knowledge yields is by no means complete or final. So far as it goes, however, it does enable us to find a satisfactory working basis on which to orient our individual lives.