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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of species scientifically dealt with in a 

 philosophical system. Understanding 

 philosophy as the Germans do, and be- 

 ing wedded to their a 2iriori system, 

 they have habitually sneered at "Eng- 

 lish philosophy," and therefore pay lit- 

 tle attention to its new books. Again, 

 they are greatly given to titles of all 

 orders, political, social, scientific. Ev- 

 ery man is jealous of his distinctions 

 they glory in their "jewels five words 

 long," as they have been called. Hence 

 they think nothing of a man without 

 scientific titles, and it is beyond their 

 imagination that any one should refuse 

 them. Mr. Spencer was, therefore, 

 without due passports to German con- 

 sideration. But against the fact that 

 Schmidt has ignored him, we may put 

 the fact that the translation of "Eirst 

 Principles " into German was made at 

 the instigation of Darwin's chief Ger- 

 man disciple, Haeckel, and was made 

 by his assistant, Dr. Vetter. 



Mr. Darwin is made out to be un- 

 theological by an exquisite bit of logic. 

 It is true that he appeals to supernatu- 

 ralism for the starting-point of his doc- 

 trine, and gives exactly the same ac- 

 count of it that theology has always 

 offered, speaking of " life with its sev- 

 eral powers having been originally 

 breathed by the Creator into a few 

 forms, or into one." But Mr. Darwin's 

 science is saved by the charitable im- 

 putation that he used these words in a 

 sort of Pickwickian or poetical sense, 

 and was willing to conciliate the theo- 

 logians by " a slight difference of style " 

 in referring to the origin of life. But 

 when to an extensive series of exposi- 

 tory works, treating of the course of 

 Nature by rigorous scientific method, 

 Mr. Spencer prefixes an essay of a 

 hundred and odd pages, to clear away 

 religious difliculties and protect him- 

 self from the imputation of material- 

 ism, which was sure to be made against 

 his scientific labors, there is neither 

 kindly feeling to see the propriety of 

 such a course, nor even a sense of jus- 



tice to recognize the fact ; but the 

 whole system is declared to be theo- 

 logical in origin and character, because, 

 forsooth, the author put theology aside 

 at the outset of his undertaking. 



We here touch upon the main source 

 of misunderstanding of Mr. Spencer's 

 system. The preliminary part which 

 treats of religion is necessarily meta- 

 physical. But Mr. Spencer does not 

 regard religion as an illusion, nor met- 

 aphysics as necessarily futile. He 

 holds that the order of the universe is 

 not without its cause, although the na- 

 ture of that cause is a mystery past 

 finding out, and from the very nature 

 of intelligence must forever transcend 

 the human understanding. The infi- 

 nite source of things is usually called 

 God, and there are many who hold 

 that man can have a knowledge of God 

 as of other things; Mr. Spencer de- 

 clines to use the current term ; and, to 

 mark his own sense of humility toward 

 that infinite cause or power of which 

 all phenomena are manifestations, he 

 prefers employing the term The Un- 

 knowable. What is represented by it 

 is not a negation or a nothing, but the 

 most exalted object of religious feel- 

 ing, though beyond the grasp and analy- 

 sis of intellect. Having defined his 

 ground in this preliminary dissertation, 

 and shown that science deals with the 

 phenomenal, while religion relates to 

 tliat which transcends the phenome- 

 nal, so that there can be no radical or 

 fundamental conflict between them, he 

 then proceeds to his great work of or- 

 ganizing the highest and most certain 

 knowledge attainable of the phenome- 

 nal universe into a system of philoso- 

 phy. That system must be judged in- 

 trinsically, or on its own merits, as a 

 coherent and consistent body of de- 

 monstrable and verifiable truth ; yet his 

 critics, from unscrupulous motives re- 

 senting his assumption in undertaking 

 so immense a task, or from incapacity 

 getting swamped among the factors of 

 a great discussion, have a habit of rep- 



