viii PREFACE. 



Mr. Spencer maintains the only proper functions of 

 Government to be those which are comprehensible under 

 the description of &quot;Negatively regulative control,&quot; I 

 may suggest that the difference between such &quot; Nega 

 tive Administration &quot; and &quot; Administrative Nihilism,&quot; in 

 the sense defined by me, is not easily discernible. 



Having, as I hope, relieved myself from the suspicion 

 of having misunderstood or misrepresented Mr. Spencer s 

 views, I might, if I could forget that I am writing a 

 preface, proceed to the discussion of the parallel which 

 he elaborates, with much knowledge and power, 

 between the physiological and the social organisms. 

 But this is not the place for a controversy involving 

 so many technicalities, and I content myself with one 

 remark, namely, that the whole course of modern 

 physiological discovery tends to show, with more and 

 more clearness, that the vascular system, or apparatus 

 for distributing commodities in the animal organism, 

 is eminently under the control of the cerebro-spinal 

 nervous centres a fact which, unless I am again 



7 o 



mistaken, is contrary to one of Mr. Spencer s funda 

 mental assumptions. In the animal organism, Govern 

 ment does meddle with trade, and even goes so far 

 as to tamper a good deal with the currency. 



In the same number of the Fortnightly Revieiv as 

 that which contains Mr. Spencer s essay, Miss Helen 

 Taylor assails me though, I am bound to admit, 

 more in sorrow than in anger for what she terms, 

 my &quot; New Attack on Toleration/ It is I, this time, 



