528 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



of his task in a spirit similar to that of Hegel : he 

 constructed a general scheme which should comprise 

 and explain natural as well as mental, cosmic as 

 well as human, phenomena. Uninfluenced probably by 

 Leibniz, who introduced the idea of development into 

 modern philosophy, he put this idea into a definite 

 shape. In his ' First Principles ' he elaborated a 

 general scheme which he — in a manner analogous to 

 that of Hegel — applied to the special objects and 

 problems of physics, biology, and philosophy. 



But the formula he started with was not purely 

 logical as it was with Hegel. It was derived by a 

 process of incomplete induction from a large mass of 

 observed facts, and then generalised as applicable to 

 the whole of existing things. This formula, which 

 occurs with wearisome iteration all through Spencer's 

 writings, can be expressed as the doctrine of the in- 

 stability of the homogeneous, the tendency of every 

 aggregate of elements and things to progress from 

 a homogeneous but unconnected assemblage of similar 

 units to a complex system of definite, differentiated, but 

 connected parts. There is a continuous play of the 

 processes of differentiation and integration. This for- 

 mula finds nowhere a more suitable material for its 

 application than in the phenomena of human society ; 

 the historical development of which, past, present, and 

 future, is accordingly passed in review. This general 

 scheme of Spencer's philosophy benefited much by the 

 growing anthropological literature of the age, which 

 deals with primitive man and savage races, and it was 

 still more powerfully assisted by the theories of Lamarck, 



