1898] MR HERBERT SPENCERS BIOLOGY 379 



added vital principle is rejected. To the questions : Is there one 

 kind of vital principle for all kinds of organisms, or is there a 

 separate form for each ? How are we to conceive the genesis of a 

 superadded vital principle ? Under what form does it exist in the 

 dessicated rotifer ? — to these questions the answers show that the 

 alleged existence neither has been nor can be conceived. In attempt- 

 ing, on the other hand, to realize the dynamic element as " inherent in 

 the substances of the organisms displaying it, we meet with difficul- 

 ties different in kind but scarcely less in degree. The processes 

 which go on in living things are incomprehensible as results of any 

 physical actions known to us." " What then," he asks, " are we to 

 say — what are we to think ? Simply that in this direction, as in 

 all other directions, our explanations finally bring us face to face 

 with the inexplicable. The ultimate reality behind this manifesta- 

 tion, as behind all other manifestations, transcends conception." 



One must not forget, in reading the chapter on the Dynamic 

 Element in Life, that it forms part of a work which is itself only a 

 part of a System of Philosophy. In Biology as a science it is ques- 

 tionable whether reference to the Ultimate Eeality, and to noumenal 

 as contrasted with phenomenal causation, is advisable. Phenomenal 

 causation, as an explanation of natural occurrences, involves the 

 reference of an event to a group of antecedent conditions of which 

 it is the outcome. Noumenal causation, as an explanation of the 

 totality of natural phenomena, involves their reference to an under- 

 lying raison d'etre. The one deals with a chain of antecedents and 

 sequents the ends of which, and its manner of support, are beyond 

 the range of our mental vision as men of science. Of the other we 

 can at best know or assume that it is. The phenomenal universe 

 presents us with, or rather is, a series of data. Science explains 

 their connections, and leaves to philosophy a discussion of their 

 noumenal origin. But since Mr Spencer here treats Biology as part 

 of a System of Philosophy the ascription of phenomena to their 

 noumenal origin is not out of place, though one would have thought 

 that a reference to " First Principles " should have sufficed. 



And one cannot but think that Mr Spencer's treatment of the 

 subject may render him liable to some misconception. On the first 

 page of the " Principles of Biology " there stands now, as there stood 

 in 1863, the assertion that "the properties of substances though 

 destroyed to sense by combination, are not destroyed in reality. It 

 follows from the persistence of force, that the properties of a com- 

 pound are resultants of the properties of its components — result- 

 ants in which the properties of the components are severally in full 

 action though mutually obscured." Further on we are told (in sections 

 added to the present edition) that living matter " originated, as we 

 must assume, during a long stage of progressive cooling," in which 



