INTRODUCTION 



stages," or regarding the value of the thoughts 

 that belong to Comte's latest period of activ- 

 ity. The distinctively and consciously Comtean 

 school of disciples has now nearly passed away. 

 And nobody nowadays (thanks in part to Fiske 

 himself) needs any extended argument to prove 

 that Spencer, at least, is no follower of Comte. 

 Besides the portion of the " Cosmic Philo- 

 sophy " which states and defends the Spence- 

 rian doctrines as such, our work also contains 

 Fiske's independent treatment of Social Evolu- 

 tion (which Spencer had not yet systematically 

 discussed) and Fiske's account of the relation 

 of Philosophy to Religion, — the most impor- 

 tant part of the book, and the one which, as we 

 have already seen, he would most have modi- 

 fied in later years. Nevertheless, the truly in- 

 dependent spirit shown by Fiske extends, even 

 in the explicitly expository portions of his 

 work, beyond the mere form of restatement. 

 For there are some matters which Spencer had, 

 in Fiske's opinion, left ambiguous, and which 

 Fiske undertakes to decide and to express un- 

 ambiguously. In consequence, in at least one 

 important respect, he comes to stand in oppo- 

 sition to certain expressions of his master, and 

 that, too, in a case where we may well doubt 

 whether there was any ambiguity about what 

 Spencer asserted. As we are here concerned 

 xliv 



