30 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



prepared to enter upon the studies of a university ? The number of 

 those who firmly believe that substantially this course is the best for 

 all boys up to the usual college age is rapidly increasing. They are 

 active and in earnest, and are making their influence felt ; but mark 

 what they ask — not that all boys shall be required to take this train- 

 ing, but that boys so trained shall be admitted to equal privileges with 

 those trained in the old way. They would put the two methods 

 squarely side by side, confident of the survival of the fittest. Those 

 defenders of the classics who would anticipate a decline in the study 

 of Greek and Latin under these conditions, have little faith in the just- 

 ness of their own claims. 



^*»- 



OKIGIJSr OF THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY.* 



By HEEBEET SPENCEK. 



To the Editor of the Times. 



SIR : As you have placed before a multitude of readers Mr. Frederic 

 Harrison's anniversary address on " The Memory of Auguste Comte 

 and his True Works," I may, I think, properly ask you to place before 

 the same readers the disproof of a statement made by Mr. Harrison 

 which gravely compromises me. He said that " Mr. Herbert Spencer, 

 who had written a book to explain his divergences from Comte, was 

 himself in all essentials his unconscious imitator, * Synthetic Philoso- 

 phy ' being nothing but an attempt to play a new tune upon Comte's 

 instrument. All the idees-m^res, as the French said, of the Synthetic 

 Philosophy, were those of the Positive Philosophy. Had there been 

 no Comte, assuredly there would have been no Spencer." Even had I 

 no other motive than that of showing my independence of Comte, I 

 should, I think, be justified in not allowing this statement to pass un- 

 challenged. But I have a further motive. As I have recently been 

 passing a very outspoken judgment on the absurdities of the Comtean 

 religion, the above passage implies that I have been ridiculing a man 

 to whom I am deeply indebted, and the desire to clear myself from 

 this aspersion compels me to speak. 



A reader of literary history, struck as he must be with the numer- 

 ous disputes about originality and priority, might sum up the result 

 in somewhat Irish fashion by saying — No man's ideas are his own ; 

 they always belong to somebody else. My experiences might serve 

 to support his paradox. Three distinct origins have been assigned for 

 the Synthetic Philosophy. The current belief is that I have simply 

 accepted Mr. Darwin's doctrine, and occupied myself in giving to it a 

 wider extension ; the truth being that the essential principles of the 

 Synthetic Philosophy were set forth by me in two essays on " Progress : 

 * From the " Times " of September 9, 1884. 



