598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



proval of the chapter, without making any specific qualifications. 

 In the course of the chapter I had occasion to quote a passage 

 from the Psychology (vol. i, p. 158 ; cf. Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii, 

 p. 444), in which Mr. Spencer twice inadvertently used the phrase 

 " nervous shock " where he meant " psychical shock." As his ob- 

 ject was to keep the psychical phenomena and their cerebral con- 

 comitants distinct in his argument, this colloquial use of the word 

 " nervous " was liable to puzzle the reader, and give the querulous 

 critic a chance to charge Mr. Spencer with the materialistic im- 

 plications which it was his express purpose to avoid. Accord- 

 ingly, in my quotation I changed the word " nervous " to " psy- 

 chical," using brackets and explaining my reasons. On showing 

 all this to Mr. Spencer, he desired me to add in a foot-note that he 

 thoroughly approved the emendation. 



I mention this incident because our common, every-day speech 

 abounds in expressions that have a materialistic flavor ; and some- 

 times in serious writing an author's sheer intentness upon his 

 main argument may lead him to overlook some familiar form of 

 expression which, when thrown into a precise and formal context, 

 will strike the reader in a very different way from what the au- 

 thor intended. I am inclined to explain in this way the passages 

 in First Principles which are perhaps chiefly responsible for the 

 charge of materialism that has so often and so wrongly been 

 brought up against the doctrine of evolution. 



As regards the theological implications of the doctrine of evo- 

 lution, I have never undertaken to speak for Mr. Spencer ; on such 

 transcendental subjects it is quite enough if one speaks for one's 

 self. It is told of Diogenes that, on listening one day to a sophist- 

 ical argument against the possibility of motion, he grimly got up 

 out of his tub and walked across the street. Whether his adver- 

 saries were convinced or not, we are not told. Probably not ; it 

 is but seldom that adversaries are convinced. So, when Prof. 

 Haeckel declares that belief in a " personal God " and an " im- 

 mortal soul " are incompatible with acceptance of the doctrine of 

 evolution, I can only say, for myself however much or little the 

 personal experience may be worth I find that the beliefs in the 

 psychical nature of God and in the immortality of the human 

 soul seem to harmonize infinitely better with my general system 

 of cosmic philosophy than the negation of these beliefs. If Prof. 

 Haeckel, or any other writer, prefers a materialistic interpreta- 

 tion, very well. I neither quarrel with him nor seek to convert 

 him ; but I do not agree with him. I do not pretend that my 

 opinion on these matters is susceptible of scientific demonstration. 

 Neither is his. I say, then, that his fifth thesis has no business in 

 a series of scientific generalizations about the doctrine of evolution. 



Far beyond the limits of what scientific methods, based upon 



