PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. x i 



can fail to be repaid for the persistent effort that may be re- 

 quired to master the entire argument. All who have 

 sufficient earnestness of nature to take interest in those 

 transcendent questions which are now occupying the 

 most advanced minds of the age, will find them here 

 considered with unsurpassed clearness, originality, and 

 power. 



The invigorating influence of philosophical studies upon 

 the mind, and their consequent educational value, have been 

 long recognized. In this point of view the system here pre- 

 sented has high claims upon the young men of our country, 

 — embodying as it does the latest and largest results of posi- 

 tive science ; organizing its facts and principles upon a natu- 

 ral method, which places them most perfectly in command 

 of memory ; and converging all its lines of inquiry to the end 

 of a high practical beneficence, — the unfolding of those laws 

 of nature and human nature which determine personal wel- 

 fare and the social polity. Earnest and reverent in temper, 

 cautious in statement, severely logical and yet presenting 

 his views in a transparent and attractive style which com- 

 bines the precision of science with many of the graces of 

 lighter composition, it is believed that the thorough study of 

 Spencer's philosophical scheme would combine, in an un- 

 rivalled degree, those prime requisites of the highest educa- 

 tion, a knowledge of the truths which it is most impor- 

 tant for man to know, and that salutary discipline of 

 the mental faculties which results from their systematic 

 acquisition. 



We say the young men of our country, for if we are not 

 mistaken, it is here that Mr. Spencer is to find his largest 

 and fittest audience. There is something in the bold han- 

 dling of his questions, in his earnest and fearless appeal to 

 first principles, and in the practical availability of his conclu- 

 sions, which is eminently suited to the genius of our people. 

 It has been so in a marked sense with his work on Education, 

 and there is no reason why it should not be so in an equal 



