EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



amplification elsewhere as in the Principles of 

 Psychology the academic opponents of Spencer 

 have never stickled at misrepresentations which 

 cannot possibly be explained without an assump- 

 tion of either wilful misinterpretation or sheer stu- 

 pidity. In his article "Metaphysics," written for 

 the Encyclopaedia Britannica but the other day, 

 Professor Case, of Oxford, classes Spencer under 

 the heading " Materialistic tendencies," and demon- 

 strates to his own satisfaction that Spencer was a 

 materialist without knowing it, though no reader 

 of First Principles could possibly avoid or, one 

 would think, could possibly forget that fine say- 

 ing about "A mode of being as much transcending 

 intelligence and will as these transcend mere me- 

 chanical motion." I offer no explanation of this 

 remarkable feat of Professor Case; but this is not 

 because there is none to offer. 



It is a curious but perfectly intelligible fact that 

 the opponents of Spencer, when they have attempt- 

 ed to refute him, have confined themselves to this 

 small section of his work a section upon which 

 the validity of the synthetic philosophy does not 

 and obviously cannot depend. Among scientists, 

 of course, he has no opponents, except upon de- 

 tails in different spheres of expert knowledge. The 

 great mass of his work is concerned with a unifica- 

 tion of science this last word being used in the 

 wide and only defensible sense. But this is ob- 

 viously outside the sphere of writers such as T. 

 H. Green, James Ward, Bradley, Case, and Caird. 

 332 



