The monistic movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are most often studied as aiming at a comprehensive world-view, a Weltanschauung. Typically, monists tried to generate such a worldview by transforming their scientific expertise in a particular field into an all-encompassing explanation and interpretation of the world. Monism thus needed to strike a balance between the specialist depth in studying one area of science and the breadth that is the hallmark of a worldview.