

AN EXAMINATION OF MR. SPENOER'S THEORY OF 

 THE WILL. BY THE REV. W. D. GROUND. 



WE saw in a former Paper that Mr. Spencer made common 

 cause with the Realist Philosophers in asserting that 

 the deliverance of consciousness must take precedence of all 

 conclusions arrived at by a process of Reasoning. In holding 

 such an opinion he shows his own good sense, his philoso- 

 phical grasp and acumen, his clear scientific conceptions, and 

 his determination to found his system on none of the mere 

 alluvial strata of the Mind, but to get down far beneath to the 

 solid rock which is underlying all. Here we can be com- 

 pletely at one with him. Any product of Reason, any conclu- 

 sion arrived at by Reason, can, in the nature of the case, only 

 be an elaboration of the materials given by consciousness, and 

 it is far better, if we want to know what is in consciousness, 

 to examine and analyse its primary elements, rather than a 

 finished elaboration of these, into which some other element 

 may have been imported. Every man of science acts on this 



