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Contemporary Evolution. 



and so much skill ? Instead of such being the case, it 

 seems probable that the post-Cartesian philosophy, of 

 which Spencerism may be taken as the culmination, will 

 have performed a most useful part. Indeed, considering 

 how through it and its alliance with physical science, 

 philosophy has penetrated where, but for these condi- 

 tions, it might never have effected an entrance, it would 

 be difficult to estimate its value and importance too 

 highly. The main reason why the wide diffusion of 

 Spencerism seems so advantageous is its bearing upon 

 four fundamental objects : I. The Ego. II. The Will. 

 III. Nature. IV. God. 



I. With respect to the Ego, the very pertinacity with 

 which writers of the agnostic school (that of Huxley, 

 Spencer, etc.) have denied that we know its existence 

 with supreme certainty, and the very arguments which 

 they have made use of to disprove such certainty have 

 really aided, in no small degree, the cause they have 

 sought to overthrow. They have so aided it, by making 

 manifest the extreme importance of our knowledge of our 

 own continued existence the substantial Ego, and forcing 

 on us a recognition explicitly of much that is implicitly 

 contained and involved in that knowledge, but which is 

 apt to be overlooked or neglected. For every one, who, 

 by this controversy has, for the first time, brought home 

 to him the really marvellous nature of his own present 

 knowledge of his past states of being, will thereby be 



