Herbert Speueer and // 

 of years, from Plato to Hamilton, the world' 



thinkers had been en^a^ed in tli. 



I>henoinena of mind; Herbert Spcm er took up the q 

 tion by a method t'n^t rendered possible by modem 

 ence, and made a new epoch in its progress, I mm this 

 time forward, mental philosophy, so called, could not - 

 fine itself simply to introspection of the adult human 

 sciousness. The philosophy of mind must deal with 

 whole range of psychical phenomena, must deal with them 

 as manifestations of organic life, must deal with them 

 genetically, and show how mind is constituted in connec- 

 tion with the experience of the past. In short, as it now 

 begins to be widely recognized, Mr. Spencer has placed the 

 science of mind firmly upon the ground of Evolution. 

 Like all productions that are at the same time new and 

 profound, and go athwart the course of long tradit 

 there were but few that appreciated his book, a single small 

 edition more than sufficing to meet the wants of the public 

 for a dozen years.* But it began at once to tell upon ad- 

 vanced thinkers, and its influence was soon widely dis- 

 cerned in the best literature of the subject. The man who. 

 stood, perhaps, highest in England as a Psychologist, Mr. 

 John Stuart Mill, remarked in one of his books, that it is 

 " one of the finest examples we possess of the psychological 

 method in its full power " ; and, as I am aware, after ci 

 fully rereading it some years later, he declared that hi- 

 ready high opinion of the work had been raised^still more 

 which he recognized as due to the progress of his own miiul.t 



Owen's College, Manchester, Mr. \V. Stanley Jevons. in his n-cent ti> 

 entitled The Principles of Science : A Treati- 



Method, says :" I question whether any scientific \\..iks \\huh have ap- 

 peared since the Principia of Newton are compai.il !e in in 

 with those of Darwin and Spencer, revolutioni/.ini; as they do a'.'. 

 views of the origin of bodily, ment.il, moral, and social ph< 

 * See Note C. 



