90 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



of mental chaos and form no expectations what- 

 ever. To this view of the case transcendentalism 

 has as yet made no satisfactory rejoinder. 



Our faith in the constancy of Nature results, 

 therefore, from our inability to overcome or " go 

 behind " the certified testimony of experience. 

 Such is the primary psychological fact, about 

 which there is no reason to suppose that Mr. 

 Wright and Mr. Spencer would disagree. But 

 this, like many other facts, has two sides ; or at 

 least, there are two possible ways of interpreting 

 it, and here arises the misunderstanding. On the 

 one hand, our belief in the constancy of Nature 

 may be the result of an immense induction or 

 counting up of the whole series of events which 

 show that Nature is not capricious ; or, on the 

 other hand, it may be the generalization of a sim- 

 ple assumption which we make in every act of 

 experience, and without which we could not carry 

 on any thinking whatever. The first alternative 

 is the one defended by Mr. Wright in common 

 with Mr. Mill, while the second is the one more 

 prominently insisted upon by Mr. Spencer. To 

 me it seems that Mr. Spencer's view is very much 

 the more profound and satisfactory ; but I fail to 

 see that there is necessarily any such practical 

 antagonism between the two as is implied in re- 



