846 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



science to deduce from the laws of life 

 and the conditions of existence what 

 kinds of action necessarily tend to pro- 

 duce happiness, and what kinds to pro- 

 duce unhappiness. Having done this, 

 its deductions are to be recognized as 

 laws of conduct, and are to be conformed 

 to irrespective of a direct estimation of 

 happiness or misery.''' 1 The italics are 

 our own, but they broadly and posi- 

 tively define Mr. Spencer's position to 

 be the reverse of that charged upon him 

 in this article. Yet, notwithstanding 

 this unequivocal statement, it pleases 

 Professor Smith to represent Spencer's 

 moral doctrines as absolving men from 

 all moral obligation, and as giving a 

 virtual license to crime by making im- 

 mediate pleasure and pain the test of 

 right and wrong; and, that his accusa- 

 tion might be sufficiently offensive, he 

 draws pictures of a voluptuary and of a 

 murderer excusing their actions by the 

 principles of the " Data of Ethics." 



But Professor Smith goes still fur- 

 ther, and labors to show that Mr. Spen- 

 cer has laid down principles which he 

 has not himself the courage to pursue 

 to their applications, and which cut up, 

 root and branch, all pretext of any mo- 

 rality whatever. He quotes largely and 

 repeatedly, from a late book of Dr. Van 

 Buren Denslow, certain brutal passages 

 in which the idea of any morality, ex- 

 cept the will of the strongest, is sneered 

 at as ridiculous. It is denied in these 

 quotations that there is any such thing 

 as a moral law which is broken by ly- 

 ing or stealing, and it is declared that 

 the rules which have arisen against 

 these practices are only expressions of 

 a predominant brute force in society, 

 which maintains them as a means of 

 imposing upon and plundering the weak 

 and the defenseless. 



And how does Professor Smith make 

 out that this is the outcome of Spen- 

 cer's doctrines? By representing that 

 Dr. Van Buren Denslow is a " profound 

 admirer " and a " disciple " of Herbert 

 Spencer who is only more "fearless" 



than his "master," and carries out his 

 doctrines to their legitimate conclu- 

 sions. The " Saturday Review " repro- 

 duces the substance of Professor Smith's 

 article, and gives special distinctness to 

 this feature of it. It says: "The case 

 will become clearer if we turn from 

 Mr. Spencer himself to his American 

 admirer and disciple, Dr. Van Buren 

 Denslow, who, as sometimes happens 

 with disciples, has carried out his mas- 

 ter's principles more consistently to 

 their logical results. In a work en- 

 titled ' Modern Thinkers,' and com- 

 mended to the public by a preface of 

 Mr. Robert Ingersoll's, the chief apos- 

 tle of agnosticism in America, he argues 

 that on scientific principles there is no 

 such thing as a moral law irrespective 

 of the will of the strongest." 



Now, the whole force of this case 

 depends upon the assertion of Goldwin 

 Smith that Dr. Van Buren Denslow is 

 a " disciple " of Herbert Spencer. But 

 the assertion is not true in any sense or 

 in any degree. On the contrary, Dr. 

 Denslow is an open antagonist of Mr. 

 Spencer. His essay on Spencer's phi- 

 losophy, first published in the Chicago 

 " Times," while speaking of the man in 

 the usual terras of perfunctory compli- 

 ment, as have also Goldwin Smith and 

 the "Saturday Review," is adverse, 

 carping, and depreciatory on every 

 point that he considers. The criticism 

 was regarded as so damaging that Spen- 

 cer's friends were told they must reply 

 to it or for ever hold their peace ; and 

 we were confidently assured that the 

 last we should ever hear of Spencer's 

 system was the thud of the clods that 

 Denslow had thrown upon its coffin. 

 When the revised essay appeared in 

 " Modern Thinkers," there was added 

 a sharp attack upon the " Data of Eth- 

 ics," in which the whole argument was 

 scouted. And yet this man is paraded 

 as Spencer's "disciple" for the unwor- 

 thy purpose of fastening upon him the 

 odium of opinions in total contradiction 

 to all that he has ever written. 



