53^ Ediuard Livingston Yoiimans. 



series of labours, I believe, may challenge comparison with 

 the highest mental work of any age. 



As to the character of the system of thought which 

 Mr. Spencer has elaborated, we have shown that it is such 

 as to form an important epoch in the advance of knowl- 

 edge. He took up an idea not yet investigated nor enter- 

 tained by his predecessors or contemporaries, and has made 

 it the corner stone of a philosophy. If by philosophy we 

 understand the deepest explanation of things that is pos- 

 sible to the human mind, the principle of genesis or Evolu- 

 tion certainly answers pre-emmently to this character ; for 

 what explanation can go deeper than that which accounts 

 for the origin, continuance, and disappearance of the 

 changing objects around us ? It is the newest solution 

 of the oldest problem ; a solution based alike upon the 

 most extended knowledge, and upon a reverent recognition 

 that all human investigation, however extensive, must 

 have its inexorable bounds. The philosophy of Evolution 

 is truly a philosophy of creation, carried as far as the 

 human mind can penetrate. If man is finite, the infinite is 

 beyond him; if finite, he is limited, and his knowledge, and 

 all the philosophy that rests upon knowledge, must be also 

 limited. Philosophy is a system of truth pertaining to the 

 order of Nature, and coextensive with it ; and, as the vari- 

 ous sciences are but the knowledge of the different parts of 

 Nature, Mr. Spencer bases philosophy upon science, and 

 makes it what may be called a science of the sciences. 

 Resting, moreover, upon a universal law, which governs 

 the course and changes of all phenomena, this philosophy 

 becomes " powerful to unify and harmonize the hitherto 

 separate and fragmentary systems of truth ; and, as this 

 is the predominant trait of Mr. Spencer's system of 

 thought, he very properly denominates it the Synthetic 

 Philosophy. 



In estimating the character of Mr. Spencer's Philosoph- 



