Herbert Spencer 165 



^H 9. It harmonises with the declarations of religion, both 



^mtural and revealed. 



10. It asserts its own truth in affirming the validity of 

 our primary intentions. 



What, then, is the motive for rejecting a single theory 

 which accords with the facts of experience, co-ordinates and 

 explains them, and for accepting one so laboured yet so 

 inadequate as the one here criticised ? It is much to be 

 feared that with many the objection lies in the last point 

 but one enumerated by us in its favour. The sting lies in 

 the fact of its harmony with religion. A passionate hatred 

 of rehgion, however discreetly or astutely veiled, Hes at the 

 bottom of much of the popular metaphysical teaching now 

 in vogue. Delenda est Carthago! No system is to be 

 tolerated which will lead men to accept a personal God, 

 moral responsibility, and a future state of rewards and 

 punishments. Let these unwelcome truths be once elimi- 

 nated, and no system is deemed undeserving of a candid, if 

 not a sympathetic, consideration, and, cceteris paribus, that 

 system which excludes them the most efficaciously becomes 

 the most acceptable. 



Our appeal, however, is not to rehgion but to reason, not 

 to authority but to intelligence, not to any dogmatic system, 

 but to the pure unadulterated, and unprejudiced human 

 intellect if happly anywhere it may be obtained for our use. 

 By that we are prepared to stand or faU. 



In these days of theological and anti-theological strife 

 it would be vain to look for an unprejudiced metaphysical 

 teacher. To find such we must revert to pre-Christian 

 times, and the best example that can be adduced of pure, 

 unprejudiced, and yet learned and cultivated human reason, 

 is furnished by the mind of Aristotle. It is a grave mis- 

 fortune that philosophy at Oxford should no longer be repre- 



