xxii 



peculiar cliarm in this author's style, in that it sacrifices to no 

 common taste, -while at the same time it makes the most abstruse 

 questions intelligible. * * * The book, if it is to be noticed 

 with the slightest degree of fairness, requires to be read and re- 

 read, to be studied apart from itself and with itself. For what- 

 ever may be its ultimate fate — although as the ages go on it shall 

 become but as the lispings of a little child, a little more educated 

 than other lisping children of the same time — this is certain, that, 

 as a book addressed to the present, it lifts the mind far above the 

 ordinary range of thought, suggests new associations, arranges 

 chaotic pictures, strikes often a broad harmony, and even moves 

 the heart by an intellectual struggle as passionless as fate, but as 

 irresistible as time. 



From the Critic. 



Mr. Spencer is the foremost mind of the only j)hilosophical 

 school in England which has arrived at a consistent scheme 

 * * * Beyond this school we encounter an indolent chaotic 

 electicism. Mr. Spencer claims the respect due to distinct and 

 daring individuality ; others are echoes or slaves. Mr. Spencer 

 may be a usurper, but he has the voice and gesture of a king. 



From the Medico- Ghirurgical Review. 



INIr. Spencer is equally remarkable for his search after first 

 principles ; for his acute attempts to decompose mental phenomena 

 into their primary elements ; and for his broad generalizations of 

 mental activity, viewed in connection with nature, instinct, and 

 al' the analogies presented by life in its universal aspects. 



