116 Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy. 



appeared as a contribution in a journal which I then con- 

 ducted. From that paper the following is an extract : " If 

 we compare Herbert Spencer, in any department of science, 

 with some chief master in that department, we find him at 

 once less and greater ; less in knowledge of details and in 

 mastery of facts and methods ; greater in that he sees out- 

 side and beyond the mere details of that special subject and 

 recognizes the relation of its region of inquiry to the much 

 wider domain over which his own philosophy extends. . . . 



" Yet one can not but pause, when contemplating Herbert 

 Spencer's work in departments of research, to note with 

 wonder how he has been enabled, by mere clearness of in- 

 sight, to discern truths which escaped the notice of the very 

 leaders in those special subjects of inquiry. To take as- 

 ' tronomy, for example, a subject which, more, perhaps, than 

 any other, requires long and special study before the facts 

 with which it deals can be rightly interpreted, Spencer rea- 

 soned justly respecting the most difficult as well as the 

 highest of all subjects of astronomical research, the archi- 

 tecture of the stellar system, when the Herschels, Arago, 

 and Humboldt adopted or accepted erroneous views. In 

 this particular matter I had a noteworthy illustration of the 

 justice of a remark made (either, by Youmans or Fiske, I 

 forget which) at the Spencer banquet in New York a few 

 years ago : ' In every department of inquiry even the most 

 zealous specialists must take the ideas of Herbert Spencer 

 into consideration.' After long and careful study specially 

 directed to that subject, I advanced in 1869 opinions which 

 I supposed to be new respecting the architecture of the 

 heavens opinions which Spencer himself, in his Study of 

 Sociology, has described as 'going far to help us in conceiv- 

 ing the constitution of our own galaxy.' Yet I found that 

 twelve years before, dealing with that part of science in his 

 specially planned survey of the whole domain, he had seen 

 clearly many of the points on which I insisted later, and 

 had found in such points sufficient evidence to lead him to 

 correct views respecting the complexity and variety of the 

 sidereal system." 



In conclusion, The Synthetic Philosophy, as at present con- 

 stituted, is not, of course, to be regarded as a finality. While 

 man continues to advance in knowledge, all systems, to be 

 of current value, will have to be subjected to much revision 

 and supplementation; but I am, I think, warranted in say- 

 ing that the leading principles of the synthetic philosophy 



