SPENCER AND THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY, n 



discourse on a great diversity of subjects, from the nebular hy- 

 pothesis to music and dancing. We are now, I believe, in a fair 

 position to realize how much, or rather how little, these curiosi- 

 ties of oracular criticism are really worth. So far from Mr. Spen- 

 cer's various essays during this epoch being merely examples of 

 flippant journalistic versatility (as such remarks as we have 

 spoken of would imply), we have seen how they are all united 

 and held together by that thread of common principle and com- 

 mon purpose which runs through them all. Random and unre- 

 lated as they may appear to superficial or careless readers, they 

 may, broadly speaking, be regarded as separate and methodical 

 studies in preparation for a complete working out in general and 

 in detail of the doctrine of universal evolution. 



And now, why have I devoted so large a portion of the present 

 paper to the consideration and analysis of these earlier, more mis- 

 cellaneous, and, as it might seem, less important of Mr. Spencer's 

 writings ? Passing over the fact that in the merest sketch of the 

 growth and development of such a mind as his we are presented 

 with a study of which it would not be easy to overrate either the 

 interest or the value, I may say that I had hopes of achieving two 

 objects by following the present course. In the first place, by 

 thus making ourselves to some extent acquainted with the pro- 

 gression and consolidation of Spencer's thought, we have, I think, 

 very materially aided in fitting ourselves for the study of those 

 ideas in the full and highly developed forms in which they ap- 

 pear in the pages of the Synthetic Philosophy ; and, in the sec- 

 ond place, it is by traveling together over this preparatory 

 ground, as we have done, that we have been enabled to reach a 

 vantage-point from which I trust it will now be easy for us to 

 take such a survey of the general field as will help us to estimate 

 with some degree of accuracy the real relation of Herbert Spencer 

 to the great modern doctrine of evolution. 



And this is a question upon which I would fain make myself 

 particularly clear, because it is one in reference to which there 

 has long been and still is current an enormous amount of miscon- 

 ception, not only among the mass of men and women (which would 

 be only natural), but also, and as it seems a little strangely, among 

 even the thoughtful and generally well informed. A vagueness 

 and instability in the meaning of certain words in common use 

 has been in this case, as in so many others, a main cause of con- 

 fusion of ideas; another instance being thus furnished of the 

 truth of Lord Bacon's dictum that, while we fondly suppose that 

 we govern our vocabulary, it not infrequently happens that, as a 

 matter of fact, our vocabulary governs us. In the common speech 

 of the day the word Darwinism is almost invariably employed as 

 if it were absolutely synonymous with the word evolution : the 



