MODERN SCIENCE. 157 



The remedy can be found in a new system of education 

 only, based upon positive science. He was one of the first 

 systematic exponents of the law of evolution as applied to 

 society. 



b. 1820. Herbert Spencer, the great PHILOSOPHER OF 

 EVOLUTION, and at the same time greatest of all modern 

 expositors and philosophers, scientifically co-ordinated all the 

 elements of progress, and expounded the Evolutionary Hy- 

 pothesis in all its multitudinous aspects cosmic and astro- 

 nomical, geological and biological, psychological and social, 

 ethical and religious, etc. in a series of works unsurpassable 

 alike for grasp, depth, and lucidity, notably those bearing upon 

 the development of the human species, from the human unit 

 to the most complex social system. His views were in the 

 first instance inspired by the doctrines of earlier evolutionists,. 

 BufTon, Diderot, Kant, Laplace, Erasmus Darwin, Geoffroy 

 St. Hilaire, Gothe, Lamarck, Malthus, Comte, Von Baer ; 

 and then fully corroborated by Lyell's and Charles Darwin's 

 results. But his system of philosophy extends far beyond 

 the limits of his predecessors', and forms a complete 

 SYNTHESIS of positive philosophy and social physics. His 

 working power was on a par with the sterling knowledge 

 he displays, for he seems to have felt at home in every 

 science, and to have, so to speak, " practised " all branches 

 in an equal degree of thoroughness. His mind stands on 

 the same level as those of the very few universal men who 

 have enlightened humanity most in the course of twenty- 

 four centuries. His masterly originality shines in the 

 number and vastness of the inquiries and elucidations he 

 independently pursued and worked out, just as much as 

 his powerful genius shines in the conception and elaboration 

 of a system which, embracing the physical world as well 

 as the spiritual, satisfactorily solves the profoundest problems 

 which lie within the boundaries of our intellectual sphere; 

 for, with unerring sense and in this he will remain a guide 

 to all future philosophers he excludes what lies beyond the 

 veil that for ever conceals ultimates from human ken. To 

 descend from heaven to earth from the Cosmos to Man 

 the remedy he advocates for the curing of many of our 



