CHAP. XIV.] A POSTSCEIPT. 425 



valid, but he actively co-operates in demonstrating the ab 

 surdity of the belief that the mental phenomena of any one 

 life, however prolonged, are sufficient to account for such con 

 ceptions as extension, causation, objectivity, and existence. 



The opponents of sensism, however, must be prepared to 

 take small comfort from such acceptance and seeming aid, 

 for Mr. Spencer is really one of their most formidable 

 enemies; and he claims to have demonstrated by a com 

 bined system of a priori and a posteriori proof that sen 

 sation and all intellectual action are fundamentally one 

 and the same, and that (sense being primary) every idea 

 is made up of transformed sensations. This demonstration 

 is accomplished by means of the doctrine of evolution, which 

 has of late attained so wide a currency and such general 

 acceptance. According to this doctrine all the varied or 

 ganisms inhabiting this planet have been gradually pro 

 duced one from another by merely natural processes, and, 

 as Mr. Darwin would fain have us believe, mainly by the 

 action of &quot;Natural Selection.&quot; In this way Mr. Spencer 

 conceives that what is a priori to the individual is but a 

 posteriori to the race, and he thus claims to have reconciled 

 the two schools of thought, namely, those who assert and 

 those who deny the derivation of all our ideas exclusively 

 from sensation and experience. As is manifest, however, he 

 gives the substantial victory entirely to the sensists, and 

 denies to all ideas any higher origin than mere incipient 

 sentiency. It is plain then that the old battle has to be 

 fought again on new ground, and no argument can be hence 

 forth admitted as valid until it has stood the test of examina 

 tion in the light of the theory of evolution. 



The effect which this theory has had on philosophy is 

 small compared with that which may be yet to come. 

 Its most modern advocates, such as Dr. Bastian, are not 

 content with driving back &quot;experience&quot; to the lowest 

 forms of animal or even of vegetable life, but teach that 

 one physical process of change redistribution of matter 

 and motion results successively in chemical integration 



