350 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



plied, that force or energy in the sense which a " mechanical the- 

 ory " connotes, can not be that Ultimate Cause whence all things 

 proceed, and that there is as much warrant for calling it spiritual 

 as for calling it material. As was asserted at the close of that work 

 (p. 558), the " implications are no more materialistic than they are 

 spiritualistic; and no more spiritualistic than they are material- 

 istic "; and as was contended in the Principles of Sociology, § 659, 

 " the Power manifested throughout the Universe distinguished as 

 material, is the same Power which in ourselves wells up under the 

 form of consciousness." 



But it is to the second sentence I here chiefly draw attention. 

 Whether or not there be a sarcasm behind the words " blandly to 

 confess," it is clear that the sentence is meant to imply some dere- 

 liction on my part. JSTow in the programme of the Synthetic Phi- 

 losophy, the division dealing with inorganic nature was avowedly 

 omitted, " because even without it the scheme is too extensive " ; 

 and this undue extensiveness was so conspicuous that I was thought 

 absurd or almost insane. Yet I am now tacitly reproached be- 

 cause I did not make it more extensive still — because an under- 

 taking deemed scarcely possible was not made quite impossible. 

 When blamed for attempting too much, it never entered my 

 thoughts that I might in after years be blamed for not attempt- 

 ing more. 



Repeated reference to First Principles as " the stereotyped phi- 

 losophy " are manifestly intended by Professor Ward to reflect on 

 me, either for having left that work during many years unchanged, 

 or for implying that no change is needed. Much as I dislike per- 

 sonal explanations, I am here compelled to make them. If, in 1896, 

 when the ten volumes constituting the Synthetic Philosophy were 

 completed, I had done nothing toward revision of them, the omis- 

 sion would not have been considered by most men a reason for com- 

 plaint. The facts, however, are, that in 1867 I issued a recast 

 and revised edition of First Principles; in 1870 an edition of the 

 Principles of Psychology, of which half was revised, and ten years 

 later an enlarged edition of the same work; in 1885 a revised edi- 

 tion of the first volume of the Principles of Sociology; and now I 

 have fortunately been able to finish a revised and enlarged edition 

 of the Principles of Biology. Any one not willfully blind might 

 have seen that when persisting, under great difficulties, in trying to 

 execute the entire work as originally outlined, it was not practi- 

 cable at the same time to bring all earlier parts of it up to 

 date. Professor Ward, however, thinks that I should have sac- 

 rificed the end to improve the beginning, or else that I should 

 have found energy enough to re-revise an earlier volume while 



