694 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



The centre of Herbert Spencer's interest lies, neverthe- 

 less, in biology and sociology, and he brings in that 

 solitary speculation taken from the inorganic world as 

 an example of historical development on the cosmical 

 scale. This bringing together of the largest cosmical 

 phenomena with those in the restricted region of living 

 things is peculiar to Spencer before Darwin's hypothesis 

 brought greater precision into this latter region. The 

 eye for far-reaching analogies, and the habit of regarding 

 individual phenomena in their surroundings in space 

 and their succession in time, form the two characteristic 

 conceptions of Spencer's early speculations. On these 

 he builds up his special scheme of evolution, the main 

 points of which he developed in a series of separate 

 essays to which he refers in his first systematic work. 

 His philosophical development is thus quite different 

 from that of Comte or from that of Mill, with whom he 

 has not infrequently been classed owing to the leading 

 interest in social questions common to both. 



Comte's scientific knowledge was really limited to 

 mechanics and astronomy, and he saw clearly, what only 

 those familiar with mathematical reasoning sufficiently 

 appreciate — viz., that the phenomena and processes of 

 life and consciousness require an entirely different treat- 

 ment from that which is applicable and sufficient when 

 dealing with the purely mechanical processes of the 

 cosmos and the lifeless world. The transition of scien- 

 tific thought from lifeless things to living and conscious 

 beings was never clearly defined in Spencer's philosophy, 

 and forms one of the unsolved difficulties in any scheme 

 of general evolution. 



