Herbert Spe^tcer 167 



It is the presence of the positive elements in Mr. Spencer's 

 philosophy which makes us hopeful as to some of its results 

 in one direction, while deploring its fatal effects generally. 

 The truths he admits, or expHcitly maintains, are pregnant 

 ^Kith far-reaching consequences which may result in strange 

 ^■ransformations. Indeed, we are not sure but that the 

 ^Bidicious application of a little ' transverse vibration ' to Mr. 

 ^^pencer's system might convert it, rapidly and without 

 violence, into an * allotropic state,' in which its conspicuous 

 characters would be startlingly diverse from those that it 

 exhibits at present. Parallel statements may be made 

 respecting Mr. Spencer's theology. Although his system is 

 most thoroughly and completely pantheistic, he every now 

 and then makes admissions or assertions of a much more 

 positive character. Thus he refers to an 'ultimate cause,' 

 most mysterious and most incomprehensible, to which he 

 gives the self-contradictory name ' the Unknowable.' To this 

 supreme and inscrutable Being we must assign no limits 

 whatever,^ and (most important of all) if Mr. Spencer declines 

 to affirm ' personality ' of this Being, it is because ^ any con- 

 ception we can form of * personality ' is inadequate and below, 

 rather than above, the unspeakable reality. 



Considerations such as these lend an interest to Mr. 

 Spencer's writings yet deeper than their own merits, many 

 and great though they be, would justify. His system is not 

 a final resting-place, but a halting-station in the philosopher's 

 progress, and one at which several roads meet and diverge. 

 Spencerism, like Lockism, may form a landmark in the 

 history of Philosophy. Like Locke, Mr. Spencer has enun- 

 ciated an ambiguous system — one capable of two distinct 

 interpretations. It has been the fate of Locke to have been 

 accepted and developed mainly according to the negative 

 and irrational interpretation. It may be that it is Mr. 



1 First Principles, p. 99. 2 Qp. cit., p. 109. 



