iv MODERN EVOLUTION 183 



scends human knowledge and conception is an un- 

 known and unknowable power, which we are obliged 

 to recognise as without limit in space and without 

 beginning or end in time. 



All that is comprised in the dozen volumes which, 

 exclusive of the minor works and the Sociological, 

 Tables, form the great body of the Synthetic Philos- 

 ophy, is the expansion of this abstract. The general 

 lines laid down in that Philosophy have become a 

 permanent way along which investigation will con- 

 tinue to travel. The revisions which may be called 

 for will not affect it fundamentally, being limited to 

 details, more especially in the settlement of the 

 relative functions of individuals and communities, 

 the problem of the origin of religion, which is con- 

 fused, not solved, by Spencer's ghost-theory; the 

 influence of the environment on organisms ; the 

 transmission of acquired characters ; and other ques- 

 tions. Into these we cannot enter here. Suffice it, 

 that to those who have the rare possession of sound 

 mental peptics, no more nutritive diet can be recom- 

 mended than is supplied by First Principles and 

 the works in which its theses are developed For 

 those who, blessed with good digestion, lack leisure, 

 there is provided in a convenient volume the 

 excellent epitome which Mr. Howard Collins has 

 prepared. 



The prospectus of the then proposed issue of the 

 series of works which, beginning with First Prin- 

 ciples, ends with the Principles of Sociology (1862- 

 1896), was issued by Mr. Spencer in March 1860. 

 Through his courtesy the present writer has seen the 

 documents which prove that the first draft of that 



