A GREAT CONFESSION. 65 



changes." In thinking of a plant, for example, we must cease to 

 speak of its living or dying. " We must exclude all the ideas 

 associated with the words life or death." * What we do know, 

 physically, is thus defined : " That there go on in the plant cer- 

 tain interdependent processes in presence of certain aiding or 

 hindering influences outside of it ; and that in some cases a dif- 

 ference of structure or a favorable set of circumstances allows 

 these interdependent processes to go on for longer periods than 

 in other cases." How luminous ! Milton spoke of his own 

 blindness as " knowledge at one entrance quite shut out." But 

 here we have a specimen of the verbal devices by which knowl- 

 edge at all entrances may be carefully excluded. Life is certain 

 " interdependent processes." Yes, certainly. But so is death. 

 And so is everything else that we know of or can conceive. The 

 words devised by Mr. Herbert Spencer to represent the " purely 

 physical" view of life and death, are words which present no 

 view at all. They are simply a thick fog in which nothing can 

 be seen. Except in virtue of this character of general opacity, 

 they are wholly useless for Mr. Spencer's own purpose as well as 

 for every other. He seeks to exclude mind. But he fails to do 

 so. He seems to think that when he has found a collocation of 

 words which do not expressly convey some particular idea, he 

 has therein found words in which that idea is excluded. This is 

 not so. Words may be so vague and abstract as to signify any- 

 thing or nothing. If under the word " fitness " human ideas of 

 adjustment and design are apt to insinuate themselves, assured- 

 ly the same ideas not only may, but must, be comprehended un- 

 der such a phrase as " interdependent processes." Painting, for 

 example, is an interdependent process, and both in its execution 

 and results its interdependence lies in purely physical combina- 

 tions of visible and touchable materials. Yet Sir Thomas Law- 

 rence spoke with literal truth when he snubbed a (Questioner as 

 to the mechanics of his art by telling him that he mixed his 

 colors with brains. The whole of chemical science consists in 

 the knowledge of interdependent processes which are (what we 

 call) purely physical, while the whole science of applied chemis- 

 try involves those other interdependent processes which involve 

 the co-operation of the human mind and will. 



We have, then, in this new phrase a perfect specimen of one 

 favorite method of Mr. Herbert Spencer in his dealing with such 

 subjects ; and the weapon of analysis which he turns so success- 

 fully against his own old phrase when he wishes to abandon it, 

 can be turned with equal success not only against all substitutes 

 for it, but against the whole method of reasoning of which it 

 was an example. The verbal structures of definition which 



* Page 751. (" Popular Science Monthly," vol. xxix, p. 55.) 



VOL. XXXIII. — 5 



