62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the fittest." But lie frankly admits that " kindred objections 

 may be urged against the expression/' to which this leading led 

 him. The first of these words in a vague way, and the second 

 word in a clear way, call up an idea which he must admit to be 

 " anthropocentric." "What an embarrassment it is that the 

 human mind can not wholly turn the back upon itself ! Self- 

 evisceration, the happy dispatch of the Japanese, is not im- 

 possible or even difficult, although when it is done the man does 

 not expect to continue in life. But self-evisceration by the 

 intellectual faculties is a much more arduous operation, es- 

 pecially when we expect to go on thinking and defining as 

 before. It is conceivable that a man might live at least for a 

 time without his viscera, but it is not conceivable that a mind 

 should reason with only some bit or fragment of the brain. In 

 the mysterious convolutions of that mysterious substance there 

 are, as it were, a thousand retinse — each set to receive its own 

 special impressions from the external world. They are all 

 needed ; but they are not all of equal dignity. Some catch the 

 lesser and others catch the higher lights of nature ; some reflect 

 mere numerical order or mechanical arrangement, while others 

 are occupied with the causes and the reasons and the purposes 

 of these. Some philosophers make it their business to blindfold 

 the facets which are sensitive to such higher things, and to open 

 those only which are adapted to see the lower. And yet these 

 very men generally admit that the faculties of vision which see 

 the higher relations are peculiarly human. They are so identi- 

 fied with the human intellect that they can hardly be separated. 

 And hence they are called anthropomorphic, or as Mr. Spencer 

 prefers to call them " anthropocentric." This close association — 

 this characteristic union — is the very thing which Mr. Spencer 

 dislikes. Yet the earnest endeavors of Mr. Spencer to get out of 

 himself — to eliminate every conception which is " anthropocen- 

 tric " — have very naturally come to grief. " Survival " ? Does 

 not this word derive its meaning from our own conceptions of 

 life and death ? Away with it, then ! What has a true philoso- 

 pher to do with such conceptions ? Why will they intrude 

 their noxious presence into the purified ideas of a mind seeking 

 to be freed from all anthropocentric contamination ? And then 

 that other word " fittest," does it not still more clearly belong to 

 the rejected concepts ? Does it not smell of the analogies 

 derived from the mortified and discarded members of intelli- 

 gence and of will ? Does it not suggest such notions as a key 

 fitting a lock, or a glove fitting a hand, and is it worthy of 

 the glorified vision we may enjoy of Nature to think of her 

 correlations as having any analogy with adjustments such as 

 these ? In the face of the innumerable and complicated adjust- 



